Depending upon whom you ask, Phillis Lin's pickup line is either very smart or very silly. When the couple first met in a bar in Shanghai in 2005, the first thing Phillis said to her now-husband Max Mueller was: 'Wow, you are tall.'
'It's hard to miss him in the crowd, he's almost 6ft 9in (205cm),' says Phillis, 35, a California-born former Hong Kong resident. 'I've never done that before. It actually takes a significant amount of prodding for me to walk over and say hello.'
Max, 33, from Germany, certainly thought it was cute. 'The interaction only lasted minutes, but it was enough for me to have a look at her beautiful face, smell her sweet scent and catch her adorable Californian accent,' he says.
Despite the good first impressions, the pair didn't start dating right away, with Max's job as an architect and Phillis' job as a management consultant keeping them apart with long working hours and frequent travel.
It wasn't until a few months later that they went on their first real date after Phillis spotted Max walking down the street in Hong Kong while she was in a cab, prompting her to phone him.
Back in Shanghai, Max invited Phillis to his apartment for home-cooked pasta. 'I was really impressed since no guy has ever cooked for me before,' she says.
