Scott Pruett, American, and his Chinese wife Cheng Huiqin make being married look fun. The couple met through a dating website in August 2008, saw each other in person six months later and after seven weeks together decided to get married.

They now have a 1-year-old son who, Pruett jokes, was conceived in the airport the day he arrived in Beijing.

And the honeymoon does not appear to be over yet, says Pruett, a copy editor and voice artist at China Central Television (CCTV).

"We've got a 1-year-old running around, and we're still running to the bedroom like teenagers in the basement, sneaking some privacy. I won't tell you how many times a week because that's just too graphic for everybody."

Cheng laughs in assent, saying: "We are passionate for each other all the time."

The couple sound like besotted young lovers with raging hormones - except Pruett is turning 50 this year and Cheng, an embassy press officer, is turning 43. The husband and wife are proud of their sizzling love life and hope they can serve as a model to other older couples.

"I want to redefine middle age in the Middle Kingdom," says Pruett, a former Las Vegas performer who could be mistaken for a professional bodybuilder.

"There's an almost universal lack of love in middle-age marriages in China. And if my wife and I can, by example, show people how to be better lovers into their middle-age years, then they will absolutely be happier. They'll be better people, they'll be healthier, they'll live longer and they'll be more involved with their kids."

The couple wanted to share this vision of life with as many people as possible, so they decided to publish their love story.

Dao of Love (Path of Love), scheduled for release in May by World Publishing Corporation, is a collection of Pruett and Cheng's e-mail exchanges from late 2008 to early 2009, from the time he was living in the United States to her acceptance of his marriage proposal in Beijing. The 400-page book consists of the original English letters, their Chinese translation and some commentary.

"I think it shows other people an example of how to get to know each other," says Pruett. "Our love letters quickly became essays, philosophy, the whole depth of our beings were poured into these sometimes three- and four-page packed essays into how we really feel about life and love and the pursuit of happiness We know each other from those intense six, seven weeks better than most people will after six, seven years."

But they emphasize that before a person can hope to find Mr or Ms Right, it is important for singles to work on becoming Mr or Ms Right themselves.

"Make yourself interesting," says Cheng, who hails from Hangzhou. "Make yourself more absorbing, open-minded and really love a lot of the things happening around you. And then you'll become a really positive person, because nobody likes a negative person.

"At this stage, when you go out to meet people, you will feel like, 'Oh, the kind of interesting people I want to attract, they're just coming to me.' You don't have to do anything, they will just come."

Pruett and Cheng make it sound so easy. But they know only too well that love relationships take hard work and that this is their second chance to get things right. Both are divorced: Pruett was married for 10 years, while Cheng was married for nine years and has a son from that union.

Whenever they have arguments or misunderstandings, the couple turns to their old love letters for guidance and inspiration.

"We have a whole stack of letters that show us tangibly what that person is," says Pruett. "You won't believe how many times we go back to what we said here, in the book, to help solidify who we are today."