TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安) married National Taiwan University (NTU) mechanical engineering professor Pan Kuo-long (潘國隆) on Saturday (Jan. 29).
The wedding ceremony saw the attendance of over 300 guests from various fields, including diplomacy, politics, academia, business, and the media. Notable guests included Secretary-General to the President David Lee (李大維), Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), as well as Australian Representative in Taiwan Jenny Bloomfield, Executive Director of the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei Jordan Reeves, European Economic and Trade Office head Filip Grzegorzewski, and former American Institute in Taiwan Director William Stanton, CNA reported.
Ou and Pan met in 2019 and decided to get married in 2021. Their wedding plans were postponed several times due to COVID-19 concerns before the ceremony was finally held on Saturday at the Grand Mayfull Hotel Taipei.
(Taiwan News photo)
Ou moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with her family as a child, and there she developed native fluency in Spanish. After graduating from high school, Ou studied medicine in Buenos Aires for a year before returning to Taiwan alone to study political science at NTU with a minor in law.
Ou later attended Columbia University and received a master’s in political science. She ranked first place in the Spanish group of the 31st diplomatic exam and worked in MOFA’s Department of Protocol before excelling as an interpreter, facilitating Chinese-English and Chinese-Spanish communications for the president and vice president on multiple occasions.
From 2001-2008 and 2011-2017, Ou worked at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York and was responsible for United Nations affairs. She returned to Taiwan in 2017, becoming MOFA’s deputy spokesperson, and on Aug. 8, 2019, became spokesperson.
(Joanne Ou photos)
