A Brand New Home
By Amoo Xu, Francisco Gusmao, Fanny Wong

Dylan Yu, a mainland Chinese student from FST, enjoys living in EAB and regards it as his home

On the campus of UM, there are an increasing number of "foreign" students: they are students from mainland China and other countries. Macau, for all of them, is not their hometown. In this sense, feeling homesick is natural for them. And more or less, there are communication barriers between them and the locals after all. Differences in languages and cultural norms are the main reasons which may cause them to feel comparatively isolated, especially in a mental sense.

However, this situation is changing because of the newly established East Asian Building (EAB). It has created a fixed communication network and has become a new "home" for these "foreign" students.

EAB was put to use last year as a new dormitory of the University. It has 18 floors with 10 flats on each floor. Totally EAB can house 800 residents. This is quite a giant building compared with the dormitories they lived in before like Block 3. Everyday after school, EAB residents return to their new "home" and begin their "family life" within the building.

There is a TV room on each floor. Students usually take their dinner there, sometimes watching TV or chatting together. On the 9th floor, which is the administration floor with no student flats, there is a big sitting room for students' get-togethers. And there is also a large podium. During holidays, the Union of Dormitory Students, constituted by dormitory students themselves, often