Glance at life in Asia’s largest college dorm

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The largest college dormitory in Asia sits on the campus of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China, housing approximately 10,000 students.

Being in service for more than a decade, the building, called Rainbow Afar (Hong Yuan in Chinese), resurfaces and goes viral again on China’s social network following a short clip that draws more vividly a picture of the student’s daily routine inside it, which is typical of the collective lifestyle in Chinese university dormitories.

“The dormitory where people get lost without a map”, narrated a student standing inside the building that is composed of about 2,000 rooms and stretches for more than 90,000 square meters.

Hong Yuan dormitory, photo from public source

The single-gendered residential hall has almost formed an ecosystem on its own with a super-market, a barbershop and stores that sell cloths and mobile phones all built in at the service of the female students populating it. Thanks to China’s booming e-commerce, ordering takeaway is only a few touches away on smart phone and delivery can be dropped at the doorstep.

“Rumor has it that a senior student had stayed in the building and never stepped out for three months”, another student told to the camera of Pear Video, a Chinese media startup.

The interior of each dorm room. Photo from public source.

But life inside each room may be more crowded in Hong Yuan than that of a flat at a university in developed countries. Five undergraduates share a room. For postgraduates the number is three. The standard could be lower in some other Chinese universities where up to eight students share one room of the similar size.

A bed in the dormitory cost 900 yuan (around 136 US dollars) a year in 2016, according to the university.