This is the story of five strangers picked to live in a house...

...find out what happens when people stop being polite and start being real. The Real World Shanghai

It might as well be an MTV with the exception:
(1) We live in a million dollar+ apartment, not a house
(2) We weren't picked to live here... within a week of meeting we decided we actually like each other
(3) We take our jobs and school work VERY  seriously (sometimes)

Personailty wise and our crazy lives would make for good television.

I've been in Shanghai for almost a month now and have yet to give a detailed account of the "strangers" I live with.  so without further to do... welcome to the frat house.


I'll speak about annie first since I recently posted this picture in a missing persons ad.  Annie was give the award "Most likely to dissapear in China" because she never spent any time this summer at our Irvine campus.  She could have spent more time with me, her first ever roommate, but nooope she had to go to San Diego several times a week to see the man who bought her that cute little dog :)  In the month that we have been in China, Annie spent a week on retreat for her job and 2 weekends visiting her grandparents in Qingdao. Nevertheless I love her and NEED her.  I need her for her fluency in Chinese and for savisng me from these ridiculuous children that we live with. A quote from Annie's facebook is "At one point in your life you either have the thing you want, or the reason why you don't"



Also inhabiting the first floor is Miles.  Miles teaches at Shanghai University. According to Miles' facebook he is a gifted child.  One of his favorite quotes is,  "I asked my Mom is I was a gifted child. She said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me."  Facebook also states that he likes movies, music, politics, reading, dancing, blues stars and MEN.  Among Miles most recent accomplishments is missing work because he lost his keys and locked himself inside the appartment for the entire day.

Although he is a child, John Yunggun lives upstairs in the man cave. He is the oldest one of us, by a few weeks, and also the youngest.  In our program, he was voted most likely to have hsi students laugh at him. His students are kindergarteners.  Of Chinese heritage, John was born in Lousiana and moved to Oregon. His facebook mysteriously indicates that he attended both LSU and University of Oregon and that he is a graduate student at Harvard University class of 2012. Clearly an intellectual, his profile inquires, "How will you be remembered?"


Last but not least is our founder, Mike.  Mike came to Shanghai a few weeks before the rest of us and found this beautiful apartment.  I get to spend an awful lot of time with him since we work at the same school.  I'm not sure where he went to college but he does talk about Penn State a lot.  Oh yeaaaa I forgot he has a Penn state alumni sticker on his door, maybe he went there?  In the about me section on Mike's facebook he has the quote, "Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul..." interesting.  Facebook also states that he is interested in Mandarin Chinese, politics, sociology, demography, foreign affairs, foreign cultures, tattoos, live music, camping, hiking, and blah blah blah.