Note:
(a) "When I left Britain to start a job in Singapore, all I took with me was a rucksack. * * * But then, as tends to happen, I met someone.
Now, I’m married and have a nine-year-old, a house and a car, but home is not London. It’s Kuala Lumpur, and my family is Malaysian."
(i) rucksack (n; German noun masculine Rücken (anatomy) back) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/R%C3%BCcken
(ii) Her LinkedIn page says she is freelance, and graduated from University of Wales, Cardiff.
(iii) Her undated photo: https://muckrack.com/kate-mayberry
(b) "Kirsten Han, a Singaporean journalist, met her husband, Calum Stuart, when she was studying for a postgraduate degree in the UK. They got married near his hometown in Scotland in 2014. * * * It was the British government's new incomes rules — introduced in 2012 with the aim of weeding out what officials said were 'sham' marriages — that made it impossible for the [this] couple to settle in the UK. * * * The rule has been blamed for creating a swathe of families [where spouses live in different nations or move outside UK altogether] * * * Han and Stuart decided to go to Singapore, where spouses are usually issued a one-year visit pass that allows them to work"
(i)
(A) Callum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callum
("a male given name and surname of Gaelic origin meaning 'Dove.' It may be also spelled Calumn, Calum or Colum")
(B) House of Stuart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stuart
(section 1.1 Etymology)
(ii) As a noun, the spelling is always "swath" in US. The "swathe" is British English. I have no idea why the British added the "e."
swathe (n; Old English swæth, swathu track, trace): "a strip [of land] left clear by the passage of a mowing machine or scythe" www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/swathe作者: choi 时间: 6-16-2016 10:46
(c) "Robert Pedrin, 37, arrived in Malaysia in 2012 and knows the stress well. The computer-networking graduate was determined to meet Carrie, 41, a recruitment consultant in Penang and the woman who had captured his heart on Facebook. * * * Since the US had rejected her application for a visa to attend his graduation in San Diego, he decided he would fly to Malaysia instead and ended up staying. In April 2014, six years after they first connected online [that is, they first saw each other online eight years ago. when he was 29 and she, 33], they married. Now on his second long-term visit pass, he hasn't been able to find work"
(i) Penang 檳城 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang
(section 1 Etymology: The name of "Penang" comes from the modern Malay name Pulau Pinang [literally 槟榔屿], which means "island of the areca nut palm")
(ii) Malay English dictionary
* pulau (n): "island" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pulau
(iii) 槟榔 https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/檳榔
(Areca catechu; " '槟榔' 一词源于马来语 'pinang。' 槟榔原产于马来西亚")
(iv) Robert Pedrin's Google+ page shows a younger, and slimmer (but undated) image of them. https://plus.google.com/104489594274642044190/about
("Attended Coleman University")
(d) "Johan Mahmood Merican, who co-ordinates the programmes as CEO of government agency TalentCorp and is married to a Singaporean."
(i) TalentCorp Malaysia https://www.talentcorp.com.my/our-work/overview
("Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad (TalentCorp) was established on 1 January 2011 under the Prime Minister's Department")
(ii) TalentCorp had a new (and female) CEO on June 1, 2016.
TalentCorp promotes COO Shareen to CEO, Johan back to EPU. Digital News Asia (DNA), May 31, 2016 https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/ ... eo-johan-back-epu-0
("Shareen [SHARIZA] replaces Johan Mahmood Merican [a man], whose secondment to TalentCorp ended yesterday (May 30), after more than five years as CEO. Johan will be returning to the Economic Planning Unit of Prime Minister's Department to take up a new role as a deputy director-general, where his portfolio will include human capital")