Anne Burley‘s Adventures in Shanghai
By Elizabeth DuMont-McCaffrey
Anne Burley and I met for drinks on Dagu Road in Shanghai at a bar that was spray painted with Christmas decorations and broadcasting Fight Club on a projector. She lives a few blocks down the road in Jing An, a central Shanghai neighborhood filled with expats.
Anne has been in China for a year and a half and has loved her experience so far. The pollution is the only downside of living in Shanghai for Anne, otherwise she enjoys stepping out of her comfort zone and exploring a new place. In Shanghai, Anne works as an SAT teacher at a relatively new company called New Pathway. 
When Anne isn’t working or gallivanting around Shanghai, she is studying Chinese, reading about China (she recently read Postcard from Tomorrow Square) or watching Walking Dead. According to her friend, Liheng, Anne has a pretty good accent in Chinese and is excellent at karaoke. Since I have heard Anne sing karaoke, I admittedly have doubts about her Chinese.
China isn’t Anne’s first adventure. Since graduation, Anne has taught on the French Riviera and organized events at the French Embassy in DC.
Directly after graduating, Anne did the TAPIF Program, a program sponsored by the French government to host English teachers in France. She stayed for one academic year teaching English, hangin
g out on the beach and drinking French wine.
After France, Anne moved back to DC, her hometown. Her brother was doing a gap year before college so her whole family was temporarily reunited. While in DC, Anne worked as an event coordinator for the French Embassy. It was exciting because she got to meet with the French Ambassador and his wife frequently, but also a very stressful job.
Even though Anne is doing all of this cool stuff, she can’t help but miss good old MHC. Anne especially misses spending time in the library stacks and dessert dilemma at Prospect. She is super excited to come back to campus for our 5 year reunion. At our 2 year, Anne roomed with Rena Schwarz, Tory Cwyk and Aviva Elzufon and she is looking forward to catching up with them as well as many other friends and classmates.
Anne is not sure what the future holds. For the time being, she plans to stay in Shanghai and learn a bit more Chinese. I wouldn’t be surprised if our next interview is across the world.
