ORANGE : International Fair Satisfies Appetite for New Friendships

Chapman University celebrated the diversity of its students Thursday with Italian penne , Philippine kutchinta and some Bulgarian melba .

The pasta, custard and ice cream were part of tantalizing fare offered at 25 tables decorated for the university’s eighth annual International Fair. The school’s 3,000-student body has 201 foreign students representing 40 nations.

The fair marked the 49th anniversary of the United Nations charter--which was signed on Oct. 24, 1945--by releasing 124 snow-white homing pigeons that closely resembled doves, the symbolic bird of peace.

Several hundred students and Orange residents wandered among tasting tables that represented a range of countries from Peru and Korea to Oman and Indonesia, and included an American table with hero sandwiches.

The event helps introduce the foreign students to the community and gives them a nice sense of welcome, said coordinator Nilani Abeyesundere, a 22-year-old senior dressed in a rust-and-black Sri Lankan blouse.

“They get here and they’re afraid and they’re homesick,” she said of new students. “This gets the whole campus together in a multicultural event.”

Graduate film student Cahl Garingan admitted being a little nervous when he arrived at Chapman this year because Orange is so different from his homes in the Philippines and Canada. But a feast like that at the fair helps everyone, he said. “The international department has made a great effort,” he said. “You’ll never get lonely.”