hold some parties there. Most EAB residents would go there, talking, drinking and having fun. During normal days, especially the period just after dinner, you can see many students sitting on the benches scattered on the podium, chatting while enjoying the cool breath of air. Dylan Yu, a mainland Chinese student from FST, said: "I have the feeling of returning home when I step into this building everyday." According to Yu, his major is software engineering which requires mostly serious and meticulous individual studies rather than a lot of group work. So he had comparatively less interpersonal communication with other classmates. Yu said that his contact with local students is even more limited. He said: "It is EAB that provides me with a place where I can get much more chance for information and emotional exchange...I feel myself completely belonging to the group here. I am a member of this big family and so many friends here are like my brothers. I enjoy living here for every single day! " Just as what Yu said, EAB links every resident here closely together and a new "local" group has been formed.

Presently, there are more and more exchange students from all around the world coming to study in UM. Their different cultural backgrounds somehow limit their interpersonal communication with locals to some extent. The language is one of the most obvious problems in communicating. Chinese is the dominant language after class in Macau after all.

It's EAB that is changing the situation again. Different from the rules in previous dormitories, in the Asian Building, students from the mainland or foreign countries are randomly assigned to their rooms. As a result, there are all kinds of probabilities, Chinese students can find themselves living on the same floor or even sharing a flat with foreign students. Because of this factor, EAB also presents another character. It provides an environment for cross-cultural communication among its residents.

Take conversations in the kitchen as an example. On each floor, there is a common kitchen. All the students of the same floor share the kitchen if they need to cook something. Foreign students like to know about Chinese cultures including typical ways of Chinese cooking. So kitchens are the place where happy talks often start. And further topics of anything would be easily covered in