One couple’s journey from Elk Mound to Australia to Malaysia to Colfax

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By LeAnn R.Ralph

COLFAX — How did a young man who graduated from Elk Mound High School end up living in Australia and marrying a brilliant young woman from Malaysia with a doctorate degree in Social Psychology?

Alex Tandberg and Hema Preya Selvanathan live in Brisbane, Australia, and were married in Malaysia on December 7, 2023, in a Hindu wedding ceremony.

Alex is the son of Christine and Mike Tandberg of Elk Mound.

Hema and Alex’s registration of marriage was October 21, 2023.

“We could celebrate our anniversary on either day,” Hema said, during a visit to the Colfax Messenger office several days before the couple returned to Australia at the end of December.

Alex and Hema arrived for a visit in the area on December 14.

Alex says they will probably celebrate their anniversary on December 7.

UW-Eau Claire

“We knew each other before I moved to Australia. We met in 2013 at UW-Eau Claire. We took a class together,” Alex said. 

“It was called Engaging Religious Pluralism. It introduces you to different religions of the world. We were both involved in that class. We got involved in doing an immersion trip to Philadelphia together, the whole class really. But that’s where we started getting close,” Hema said.

“We went on the trip together. Spent every day together. We could chat about the day. That’s when the relationship began to blossom, I suppose you could say. After that we dated for about a year. Hema graduated at the end of 2014,” Alex said.

“I went to graduate school to pursue my master’s degree and PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We were long distance that whole time, for five years,” Hema said.

Hema is now employed at a university in Australia. 

Alex majored in computer science at UW-Eau Claire.

“I always thought, if we stick together, I will need a versatile job. We didn’t think we would end up living in the area,” Alex said.

“We always thought we would move away, but we didn’t think we’d end up living in Australia,” Hema said.

“A job opened up, and it was a good fit for my research area. That’s where people were doing the kind of research I was excited about,” she said.

“I remember asking him if he was okay if I apply for this job. He said, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ He never wanted to stand in the way of my career,” Hema recalled. 

“Then when I got the job, I remember telling him, and he was sad. ‘I guess that means I need to move now,’” she recalled, sharing a laugh with her husband.

“There is that reality that you are going to have to leave your hometown and your family and friends behind. That’s when it really hit us,” Alex said.

Brisbane has a population of 2.3 million, while Australia, which is roughly the size of the United States, has a population of a little over 24 million. 

The population of the United States is 330 million. 

COVID-19

Hema and Alex had no more than gotten settled in Australia when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.

“We went from long distance to moving in together in Australia in 2019,” Hema said.

“I came over there in July. Then of course COVID hit early the next year. It created this interesting situation where we were long distance for five years, and then suddenly, we were all we had for family because we couldn’t visit home. Hema could not go back to Malaysia to visit her family,” Alex said.

“We were stuck there because Australia was pretty strict with the borders. We stayed in our little bubble there in Brisbane,” Hema said.

“Until 2022. Spring of 2022,” Alex said.

“That’s when they opened up the international borders, and we went to visit family right away,” Hema said.

“It was two and a half years when we could not see our families. We visited home in 2019 for Christmas, and the plan was always to go back for Christmas. To not be able to do that, and then not being able to have the control of being able to see your family when you want …” Alex said.

“… It was scary, and you felt stuck,” Hema said.

“We are very happy being in Australia …” she said.

“… We love it there,” Alex said.

“The only thing is we are far from family because we don’t have family there,” Hema said. 

“It’s always a big trip when we go to see our family. It’s going to be at least two flights, and one of them is going to be about 14 hours and the other 10 hours,” Alex said.

“And we subjected them to that,” Hema said, smiling as she indicated Alex’s parents, Mike and Chris Tandberg. 

“Last November, in 2022, my whole family visited us in Australia for two weeks. That was awesome. We showed them all around Brisbane. We had gotten to know the city very well by then,” Alex said.

“We loved it,” Mike said.

“It was great to finally be able to show my family everything I had talked about over Skype,” Alex said.

Malaysia

After more than two years of not being able to see their families in person, Hema and Alex had some important news to share. 

“When we visited in April of 2022, we told my family, and we started talking about the wedding. Started in doing preparations for that,” Alex said.

“It worked out for the end of this year (2023) with our jobs. My semester ended, and he could take leave, so we could roll that into the Christmas holidays,” Hema said.

“So we had the wedding in Malaysia where my family is all from. We did a Hindu wedding, which was a new experience for everyone, shopping for traditional attire, and learning a lot about the culture,” she said.

“It was quite the experience,” Mike said.

“A totally different experience,” Chris said.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I was prepared for anything. I am very glad that we went. It’s a beautiful country,” Mike said.

There was, of course, that long journey to get there.

“At first, I thought, ‘Oh, man. That’s going to be a long trip.’ But I’m very glad and happy that we did. My other two sons were able to be there. The whole family was there to be part of the ceremony,” Mike said.

Family ties

In Hindu culture, the wedding is not only a marriage of the couple, but it is also the coming together of two families.

“A lot of the rituals involve both of our parents. So they’re on stage, doing rituals, and the priest is guiding them,” Hema said.

“They gave me cues on what to do. I did what (the priest) did. It all worked out. I didn’t want to have to start all over again because I didn’t do something right!” Mike said with a laugh. 

“It was very nice,” he said.

“On our own, my wife and I would have never made it over there. But being Hema’s family was there, and she grew up there,” Mike said.

“They took such good care of us. We wouldn’t have had the great time we had without them. They took us out to eat. They would tell us what the food was. They went shopping with us,” Chris said.

Shopping in Malaysia is a different experience from shopping in the United States.

“Her mom is just a master negotiator. You learn that you never pay full price for anything. You negotiate,” Chris said.

“I needed to buy some sunglasses, so I was just going to pay, and Alex stepped in and said, ‘No, no, no.’ He negotiated it down a lot,” Mike said.

“Chris and I were chauffeured all over. It was really nice. You didn’t have to worry about getting lost. It’s a big city — 8.6 million. And very modern,” Mike said.

Kuala Lumpur and New York City have a population of a similar size. 

“The shopping malls are just huge. I was amazed. And they’re really into Christmas. I was shocked. The Christmas trees and the decorations all around. I wasn’t expecting that,” Mike said.

“For not having a centimeter of snow, they really go all out,” Alex said.

Malaysia “is a very diverse country. There are all kinds of religions. Islam. Hinduism. Buddhism. Christianity. Sikhism. They celebrate all of it. The malls are decorated at different times of the year for the different religious holidays. Chinese New Year will be the next one,” Hema said.

“Every kind of food you could imagine, if you want to be adventurous on the food. I tried all it,” Mike said.

“He tried all the spicy food he could find,” Alex said.

Same taste

Even though Mike Tandberg is apparently willing to be adventurous about cuisine, he also has embraced the idea of a different kind of adventure involving cuisine.

“One day my oldest son and I, Andy, we were at a resort [while in Malaysia]  and we went up into the mountains, and there was a big mall there,” Mike said.

“We were going to get something to eat, and we saw — and I told Alex this one time — I should make it a goal to go to every continent and try a McDonald’s to see if it all tastes the same. We spotted a McDonald’s in this huge mall,” he said.

“We went over there. It was just like in Eau Claire or Menomonie. The only thing that was slightly different was the ketchup. It was a little different. But the coffee. The Big Mac. The fries. It was all the same. That was pretty neat,” Mike said.

“Over 50 years ago when I finished my Vietnam tour, I was in a plane flying back to the United States. And when I was in that plane, I never dreamed that someday I would be flying back to Asia for my son’s wedding. It was a great experience,” he said.

Christmas

When you live so far away, holidays with family take on an even greater meaning.

“We plan to always come back for Christmas. Cookie decorating. Decorating the tree,” Alex said.

“They went to the Pleasant Valley Tree Farm and cut down the Christmas tree and hauled it home,” Mike said.

The only thing missing, Alex said, was snow.

As readers will recall, even though there were a few light dustings of snow in November and December, none of it stuck around for very long, and on Christmas Day, there was a high temperature in the 50-degree Fahrenheit range.

Since Hema had attended UW-Eau Claire, she is quite acquainted with snow.

“We were disappointed. I’m sure a lot of people are happy without the snow. It’s easy driving. But for us, it was disappointing,” Alex said.

“We were hoping for a snowstorm,” Hema said.

“Christmas 2022 when they were finally able to come back again, they wanted to get back to Wisconsin and touch some snow,” Mike said.

“In Australia, the seasons are opposite, so they are coming into the hot and humid season there. Brisbane is something like 500 miles north of Sydney. So they are a lot closer to the equator. They have some warm summers. We haven’t been there in the summer yet,” he said.

“Luckily (in 2022) we had snowbanks. I’ve got a picture of them touching snowbanks,” Mike said.

Flying by

As is the case when people are enjoying themselves, time seems to speed up.

“It went by too quick. They’ve been here since the 14th. It flew by. It went way too fast,” Mike said.

Hema and Alex headed back to Australia on December 29.

“We are very happy there. It’s a good lifestyle. Good weather,” Hema said.

“We enjoy our jobs. We’ve got two cats,” Alex said.

“That’s what we did during the pandemic. We got the first cat around the time the lockdown started. We adopted a cat. Then we adopted a second one so they could be friends,” Hema said.

Anyone who has cats knows that sometimes they do not take kindly to their owners being gone for a few days, much less a few weeks.

“Their cat sitter sends some pictures every day of the cats,” Mike noted.

“I am hoping Alex and Hema come back home pretty often,” he said.

Which side?

When the Colfax Messenger reporter attended Colfax High School many, many years ago, one of her driver’s education partners had joked, at the beginning of behind-the-wheel, “which side of the road do we drive on here in Wisconsin?”

For Alex, that is not so much of a joke.

“In Australia they drive on the other side of the road,” Mike noted.

“When I get back here in the States, I have to rewire my brain,” Alex said. 

Driving on roads in the country might not be so bad when you are used to driving on the left side of the road, but when you get back to a big city …

“There’s no margin for error there,” Alex said.

Modern technology

Fifty years ago, when Mike was serving in Vietnam, communication with loved ones back home was limited to possibly the occasional telephone call and letters sent through the mail.

Today, he is dealing with a similar situation in relation to distance, but not for communication.

“They are a long ways a way, and that’s hard to deal with,” Mike said.

“But parents can’t get in the way of their kids’ dreams and goals. They have to be happy and do their thing,” he said.

“You want them to be themselves and live their dreams and be on adventures. They are on their own adventure now, and that’s good. They have it planned out. We wish them the best. Even though they are far away, we wish them the best,” Mike said. 

“But these days, we have Skype and other ways to communicate. We keep in touch with them pretty close,” Chris said. 

“Every weekend we Skype, and that helps,” Mike said.

“And nowadays, you can send pictures back and forth really quick. That helps a lot,” he said.

“At home, I’ve got one of those flippy frames. It’s digital and flips a picture every few seconds. So I have a lot of their pictures on there,” Mike said.

“At home, we have a clock for Brisbane, Australia, on the wall. Our oldest son is in Hawaii, so we have a clock for that, too,” he said.

Different worlds

Hema and Alex not only grew up in very different parts of the world, but they also grew up in different circumstances: one in a large city and one in a rural area.

“It’s so different about our upbringing,” Hema said.

“I grew up in a big city — but I was never interesting enough to have a newspaper story about me,” she said, glancing at her husband with a mischievous little smile.

The Colfax Messenger is always delighted to highlight news of international travelers, especially when one of them graduated from a local high school.

“I grew up on a farm south of town. Hema says there a lot of things she is not familiar with out in the country, but there are a lot of things I’m not familiar with in a big city,” Mike said.

“In Malaysia, the traffic, you’re sitting in these lines of cars, and the motorcycles are going between the rows of cars. You probably wouldn’t be able to get away with that here. But they’re all good drivers. I never felt like I was in danger. She comes out in the country, and she wants to see the woods and vegetation,” Mike said.

“And look for deer,” Alex said.

Ah yes, one of Wisconsin’s most bountiful resources: Whitetail deer. 

Or at least deer are bountiful around this area. 

Usually.

“We’ve been trying to find a deer for her to see close up. Not one that’s way across the field, but up close,” Mike said. “We’ll try to find one somewhere. The trouble is, you see them all the time everywhere — but then when you’re looking for one …”