Are we marching backwards?

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/Columns/20051228090901/Article/indexb_html

This article from a Malaysian journalist made me smile.

We should be very clear that this trip is a mission that must deliver results. It should not degenerate into a courtesy visit for the Myanmar authorities to trot out their usual platitudes about "step-by- step" democratisation efforts when it is patently clear that they have been marching backwards.

I wish there were a bit of freedom of speech to speak out our frustrations. While I was living in Burma the last two years, I self-censored my speech on my diary. I still do now. :-) I want to know the true situations of Burma. Sadly many bloggres inside Burma can't speak to their hearts. I was afraid to say everything while I was blogging inside Burma from December 2002 till December 2004.

I think we have been marching backwards the past ten years. It seemed to have some signs of improvements around the late 1990s. Now in 2005, the situations are not improving. Let's hope the best for 2006. If you are blogging from inside Burma, please let us know the true pictures because I believe that people inside are more important than people outside like me. Let's create brighter future for kids in Burma.

A local kid from Nam San Yang village, Kachin State in Northen Burma

Facts of Thailand

http://www.fdimagazine.com/news/fullstory.html/aid/1030/Thailand.html

1. Gross national income per capita: $2,190
2. PPP Gross national income per capita: $7,450

Note: PPP is purchasing power parity."Because exchange rates do not always reflect international differences in relative prices, Table 2 below converts GNI per capita estimates into international dollars using purchasing power parity (PPP) rates."

I put the above figures because I want to make a point to some of my students that if they can make about $ 150 in Burma, it's worth it to work in Burma instead of coming to Thailand. Many of my students asked me if there are jobs for them in Thailand. I can understand why everybody wants to leave Burma. I would encourage my students to work in Burma if they can earn about $ 150 a month because if you look at the above figure, the per capita income of Thailand is $2,190. That means it's around $ 185 a month in Thailand. Unless, of course, your education is extremely high and you are in demand, you will make around $ 200 to 300 a month.

I called home yesterday and found out that they were many black-outs recently. Electricity has been unstable, which is same old problem for Burma.

Merry X'mas to you all. I know it's a late wish. But I wasn't home since Christmas. :-) So no online access. I managed to go without the Internet for 2 days, I guess. :-) I went window shopping on December 24 with my boss. We did buy a Mac mini as I said in my previous diary entry. We were around the new shopping mall. A lot of Thai people were also doing window shopping.

On Christmas day, I went to Bangkok Christ Church and met some of my BARS students who visited Bangkok from Vientiane, and Yangon. They were here for vacation. After church, I went to visit their dorm. We had lunch together. Good Burmese food. We then went to Calvary Church at Sukhumvit Soi 2 in the late afternoon. After church, we went to watch a movie at the theatre. We watched King Kong. It was an exciting movie. The movie basically compared New York city with the jungle, human beings with animals. The cost was 120 bahts a person. It was only $ 3. Compared to the States, it was very cheap. Don't you love being in Asia? I do :-)

At Calvary church, there were a lot of Burmese. I was wondering how many people from Burma were outside of Burma. One of my BARS students wished me merry Christmas from Chiang Mai. I think she came to Chiang Mai illegally. Everybody wanted to pursue their dreams. I wonder if we could create dreams and opportunities for these young people in Burma so they don't have to leave home and families, and still have a better life. This can't go on for ever. I am sure we can't bring everybody out of Burma. Something has to change and I am hoping for the best for the future of Burma.

I also met Joey Tun, who lived with us while studying in the States. His family was in Bangkok for Christmas vacation. I spent Sunday night with my friends hanging out with them and eating Burmese food with them.

I got back home today in the afternoon. I watched a movie, Original Sin, again at home. Life is not so interesting outside of Burma, I guess :-) When I was in Burma, I had lots of stories to tell. However, I didn't have a regular internet access. Now that I have 24/7 ADSL connection here in Bangkok, I don't have much interesting stories to tell :-)

Kids near Thai-Burma border, those who don't belong to neither Thailand nor Burma

We bought a Mac Mini today. I set it up so we can log in remotely from our Windows XP and Linux machine. I used OSXvnc as a server on Mac. Here is the link from apple web site.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/osxvnc.html

Another one from redstonesoftware

http://www.redstonesoftware.com/multidesktop.html

I installed RealVNC 4.1.1 client on Windows XP machine. And voila, it works. Cool. I could log into Mac machine from my XP box.

I also set up VNC server on my Linux machine. Here is how my config file looks like on my Linux machine for VNC server:

/etc/sysconfig/vncservers
VNCSERVERS="1:doug 2:lwinmoe"
VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 2000x1024"
VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 1280x1024"

I then started the VNC server by this command:

service vncserver start

To allow port 5901 and 5902 for VNC server through iptables

iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --destination-port 5901 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --destination-port 5902 -j ACCEPT

Now I can log in from my Windows XP machine to Linux box using RealVNC client. I have 3 operating systems running on my desktops -- 2 remotely (OS X and Linux) and Windows natively. It's great. I have to figure out how to be more productive :-)

OS X screen shot running on my Windows XP box

Today, I helped Somboon Chungprampree, my friend, to set up his new laptop. He is an activist working for Spirit in Education Movement organized by Sulak. He has been in and out of Burma many times.

Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the picture taken by Somboon Chungprampree from Summit Parkview Hotel

Burma is a very beautiful country. Because of its closed door policy in the past, many tourists find it mystic. I am finding many academics and tourists attracted by Burma and the people of Burma. Fortunately, my work evolves around languages of Burma. Here are some books to learn Burmese.

http://www.101language.com/burmese.html

I just hope that the suffering people in Burma will find hope and freedom one day.

Doug Cooper, my colleage, mentor, boss, and I registered sealang.net today. SEALang stands for South East Asian Languages. Right now, only Thai is up and running. It's not even completely finished yet. You can see Burmese, Karen, Mon and Shan without any links. Please be patient. It will be coming in a few months or years :-) That's what we will be busy with in a couple years from now. We already finished some work on Burmese-English dictionary. We have to polish it a bit before we put it online. I hope one of the Unicode fonts will be stable enough to use online. Every data in the Burmese-English dictionary is in Unicode encoding now. We used Perl to convert the dictionary data from Chitwin font to WinInnwa font. We then used TECkit converter to convert from WinInnwa to Unicode Encoding. Keith Stribley helped us with conversion to Unicode. In our testing environment, we use Padauk font to display. The problem of Padauk is you need a special build of Firefox with Graphite.

I will have to figure out a way to present it to you if none of the Unicode fonts is mature enough. What I will probably do is try to convert the HTML to PNG image on the fly and then present it to the user. I will just have to wait until one of the Unicode fonts is stable and usable. If you have any suggestions, please send me an email. :-)

Here is our SEALang project link: (note: Internet Explorer won't work properly with our site because of its lack of compliance to standard)

http://www.sealang.net

Burmese will be up in the spring of 2007 if you look at the schedule. So stay tuned :-)

The above site is hosted on my Linux machine which I maintain and use daily, which I am using right now to update this blog :-)

I met with Ko Myat Soe today. Ko Myat Soe and I went to school together in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. I didn't realize that he was in Bangkok for his vacation. We went out dinner together with another Thai friend of his. We had a very nice chat. I am glad that I made a new friend today.

I went to Bang Pon today with folks from Bangkok Christ Church. Bang Pon is about a hundred mile from Bangkok and we had to drive about an hour and a half. We went to a food-processing factory to have Christmas celebration with some

Burmese migrant workers there. There were some Christians and most of them were Buddhists. These people were working hard far away from home. They couldn't leave the town because their travel was limited to the town they were in. One kid, I met, was Kyaw Zin Win. He was about 17 years old. I couldn't imagine a 17-year old kid, so far away from parents, working in this strange land. Life must be hard for him. At least, he had an uncle to turn to for help. I sympathesized with him. Here I am with good education and nice pay (and I am 29 :-), I still miss my parents and friends in Burma. How a kid like him could cope with difficulties in another country was beyond me. If we think that our life is hard, let's remember people like Kyaw Zin Win and help in a small way that we can. We don't have to give them money. Just a friendly smile and chat can do a lot. Let's smile and help for those in need.

We had so much fun and so did they. We gave them presents and they were all smiling. They gave us back fish-paste (nga-pi) and other vegetables. One of the songs, by Ma Dolly, made us all think of our home. The song was about wanting to go back home during Christmas time and our loving mother and father, who will be waiting for their lovely son/daughter to come back. Her voice was so sweet and it made many of us miss home.

Constructions in Pyin Oo Lwin (May Myo)

http://www.irrawaddy.org/special-maymyo.asp

The new project to enable the ruling brass to live in cool luxury is in Maymyo, also known as Pyin U Lwin, 67 kilometres east of Mandalay and one hour's flight from Pyinmana.

The Irrawaddy acquired exclusive pictures showing work on some of the new mansions, with their large gardens. Business sources say there will be about 30. No expense has apparently been spared to allow the generals to live in what is basically a resort -- complete with an artificial beach and a man-made stretch of water to lap onto it.

Construction work on the mansions is supervised by government engineers, but contracts have been awarded to Rangoon-based private companies, such as Htoo Trading Company and Asia World. A director of the Htoo Trading Company confirmed that the company was involved in construction there, but added: "We are only doing interior design work for the three largest houses."

Internet censorship in Thailand

I didn't realize that the Internet access from my ISP in Thailand was censored. When I tried to access the following web page, my proxy server from True ISP blocked the access.

http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html

US government as worse as Burmese government! You wouldn't believe this :-) Bangkok Post has a news article.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.html?id=67787

U.S. tied with Burma in jailing journalists

New York (dpa) - The United States and Burma, a country ruled by a military regime, placed sixth this year in a list of countries that put the most journalists behind bars, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Wednesday.

Isn't it funny the world's (supposed to be) freest democracy, the government who dubbed Burma's regime "the outpost of tyranny," is forgetting its own violations of human rights? I wonder if there are any ideal governments in the world? Dream on :-)

Headliners from Burma

An exhaustive list of who's who in Burma for 2005.

Hey, where is your name and mine? :-)

I know you can't access the Irrawaddy if you are from Burma. But I have seen many kids at the Internet cafe in Burma smarter than me when it comes to bypassing firewalls :-) Good luck! My salute to you if you are in Burma ;-)

http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=5284&z=102

• R Zarni [Rock Singer]
• No [Female Pop Group]
• Tun Tun [Hip Hop Singer]
• Maung Myo Min [Film Director]
• Nay Myo Say [Artist]
• 88-Generation Students Group [Burmese Student Leaders]
• Min Ko Naing [Student Leader]
• Charm Tong [Exiled Activist]
• Su Su Nway [Human Rights Defender]
• Hnin Sandar [Defiant Widow/Activist]
• Aung Din [Exiled Activist]
• Aung San Suu Kyi [Opposition Leader]
• The Peopls who Speak of NLD
• Cin Sian Thang [Ethnic Leader]
• Sao Surkhanpha [Exiled Activist]
• Ludu Sein Win [Veteran Journalist and Social Critic]
• Eleven Media Group [Media]
• Than Lwin Htun [Journalist]
• Than Shwe [Burma's Junta Supremo]
• Kyaing Kyaing [Burma's First Lady]
• Lt-Gen Myint Swe [Rangoon Commander]
• Maj-Gen Myint Hlaing [Northeast Region Commander]
• Daw Thissawaddy [Burmese Female Monk]
• Tay Za [Businessman]
• Yin Yin Khine [Athlete]
• Soe Myat Min [Athlete]

One of my friends, who work as a flight attendant at an airline, told me that Tay Za, who owns Air Bagan, fired a senior flight attendant for no reasons. Just because he didn't like that employee. Wonder that's true? I don't know. We have to rely on Rangoon rumor mills because of lack of transparency in the news and media.

A village house on the river bank near Tharyar Waddy and Thone Se (Thirty)

Silky Hair (Rejoice Commercial)

I had to laugh watching this :-)

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/50197/silky_hair

Censorship and my random thoughts

A few days ago, MadyJune had a blog entry about Korean soaps being censored on the Myanmar TV. It made me think about different standards of censorship rules in different countries. On Thai TVs, they censor every smoking scene, which is probably a good thing. However, the youths on university campus still smoke :-) I think that the number of people who smoke in Thailand is low.

I don't want to say that the censorship in Burma is bad. But I think it's a bit overboard. It certainly has killed creativity. Back in the past, university students in Burma could practice free speech, and it had given birth to many great leaders and writers.

Now the Internet has given people a place to speak out. I am seeing many bloggers from Burma --- some blog in English, some in Burmese (partial implementations of Burmese Unicode fonts made it easier to use Burmese on the Net). I am hoping that more and more people in Burma will have access to the Internet. I don't know the recent price of dial-up access any more. While I was there until last year, it was 28,000 kyats (about US $28) for unlimited access. It's a bit expensive for ordinary people. People like MadayJune, a young professional, should be able to afford Internet service at home. However, the price is still expensive for most people. I hope that one day you will be able to afford a nice Internet service at home, MadyJune :-)

I am hoping that nobody will try to kill the creativity of these bloggers. I am afraid that Burma will try to crack down on bloggers like China did.

As a diary writer, I whined a lot about Burma the past two years. I had really difficulty living in Burma in terms of lack of freedom after enjoying free speech in America. There are two kinds of people: 1) people who don't realize the value of freedom until they are stripped of it, 2) people who never realize what freedom really means. People in America are in category 1 and I found that most, /empahsize/ most /emphasize/, people in Burma are in category 2, especially people in remote places in Burma.

I want to give you one example. While I was visiting Than Byu Zayet, Mon State, I had to help a friend for his wedding. I was driving an SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle). The bride and groom were with me in the car in the back seat. My friend, Nai Aung Gyi, a pastor from Than Byu Zayet church, and his little son were with me in the front seat. Another SUV was following me. Our cars happened to have stickers on the windows. A bus from the opposite direction of the highway pulled over, thinking that our cars were VIPs' because at that time, many military officers use those unlicensed SUVs in border areas. And I tell you they are kings there. People's fears were just deep-rooted in their unconscious minds.

I just want to encourage people inside Burma to keep on living. Anybody can force you to shut your eyes but they can't force you to sleep. People outside -- you should really give it a serious thought of living and working in Burma for at least a few years and it will give you experiences of your life time. You will come to realize that your experiences and education outside of Burma have changed you incredibly. And most important of all, you will be helping the people of Burma in a way that you will not realize yourself.

I came across the Campus Ministry web site from my alma mater. Gosh, time files and I am getting old :-) I was looking at my picture, which was taken like 5 years ago.

http://www.ipfw.edu/ministry

I have been whining about some of the Internet Cafe in Burma taking your finger prints. November 26, 2003 entry is about being fingerprinted to use the Internet Cafe in Burma. Now, to be fair and not partial, I have to report the same kind of thing in Italy.

Law requires Italian Internet Cafe to record ID

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/12/09/cyber.cafes.names.ap

Italy is the only European Union country to require Internet cafes to record ID information on clients, said Richard Nash, secretary general of EuroISPA, which represents Internet providers in Europe.

Non-member Switzerland, however, does requires people who go online at Internet cafes to show IDs, according to Robin Gross, of the U.S. civil liberties group IP Justice.

Several Asian countries and cities, most prominently China and including the Indian technology hub of Bangalore, require registration at cafes.

One interesting comment on this:

"These people caused the Twin Towers to collapse," said Edoardo Righi, a computer tech at a store near the tourist-rich neighborhood of Campo dei Fiori. "They're not going to stop because they can't send an e-mail."

Last night, I was hanging out with Bob until 5 in the morning. We had Bangkok night life and caught up with each other -- what's going on at the Myanmar Institute of Theology and a bunch of talking. We had fun.

I didn't go to church because I went to bed at about 6 in the morning and couldn't get up. However, I went to the Mon Christian Fellowship's Christmas celebration today. Oh Gosh, I miss Burma so much today. I feel lonely here.

Many Burmese people who are working in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and everywhere else, I am sure, will miss Burma. Even if not all of them, some definitely will, won't you? :-) Don't you sometimes wish that we can all work in Burma and stay close to our families? Life being away from home and away from families and loved ones is not so easy. Added to that was having to work very hard. I think my life here in Bangkok is not that hard. Just because of my education from the States, I am being paid quite well for what I love to do. Compared to many of my friends who have to work in construction sites and as housemaids, I feel very blessed. I lived in Burma and learned that many people are struggling. Now I am living in Thailand and still learning that many people from Burma are still struggling. I wonder what I can do for my people next time I go back to Burma. I tell you the last 2 and a half years in Burma was really rewarding and full of blessings for me. This diary (blog) is all based around my thoughts about Burma with a different perspective. I really had to go through a reverse culture shock to be in Burma after nearly 5 years of America. It's just different.

However, I am very happy to be in Asia now and I feel good to live in Asia because of cheap living expenses and lifestyles. I definitely will try to go back to work in Burma again after I get my research experiences and education here in Bangkok. I don't think I want to go back to the States. :-)

Here is a picture that I took while in Burma so I won't lose touch with Burma.

An old man with a tobacco smoking pipe in a village house in Burma

A Karen lady with her chickens at Yedwinyegan village, Myaungmya (this picture courtesy of Friends of Burma)

Quote of the day

"Well, the progress [in Burma] has been about as fast as glue flowing up a hill."

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/malaysia-demands-burma-inspection/2005/12/11/1134235946478.html

Today, I am excited about Bob's visit to Bangkok from Yangon. Bob Winter is originally from Chicago. He has been teaching English at the Myanmar Institute of Theology for a few years now. He called me yesterday and he said he would visit me this evening. I am looking forward to meeting him.

OJ from Canada, Lwin Moe and Bob Winter, fine professors at MIT :-) ----- in front of MIT library

I always love living in a village. Of course, with electricity and internet connection so I can work :-)

Cooking in Burma --- A Lisu lady cooking at her house

Life Style in Mogok (Lisu People)

Famous Director U Thu Kha died

http://khitpyaing.org/modules.html?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=638

U Thu Kha died on the 7th according to the Khitpyaing news. He is a very talented director. I liked many of his movies. He is a great artist. It's a loss for the Burmese movie industry.

I went to Punthip plaza today. Even though I have been there several times, it still has a lot to see and many new gadgets to catch up with. Punthip plaza is a five-story mall of computer hardware and software. It's about a few blocks from the Victory Monument where I live. I took the sky train to Ratchathewi station. I walked up to Petchabiri road. I got to the plaza after walking for a few minutes. All I bought today was a couple blank CDs and Red Hat Fedora Core 4. It cost me 300 Bahts (US $7.5) for Fedora Core 4. You can buy any pirated PC and Mac software with a very cheap price. There are a lot of tourists from developed(?) countries (where there are no piracies) buying latest movies and music albums.

I am not sure whether it's ethically right to buy these stuff. However, it's justifiable to buy these because my salary while I was working at the Myanmar Institute of Theology was US $20 a month. Technically speaking, to buy an official copy of Windows XP, I would have to save for about one year without eating. :-)

We, Doug Cooper (my mentor) and I, bought two new high-end computers for our work yesterday. It cost us about US $1,500 for 2 computers.

Here are the specs:

First computer

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 1.8 Ghz, 512 KB cache
• ASUS A8N5X Motherboard
• Two Maxtor 6L200S0 SATA 200 GB hard disks (Note: We want RAID)
• ATI radeon 7000 PowerColor Graphics card
• 2 GB of RAM

Second computer

• Intel Pentium 4, 3.00 GHz
• Asus P5WD2 Motherboard
• Two Maxtor 6L200S0 SATA 200 GB hard disks (Note: We want RAID)
• ATI radeon 7000 PowerColor Graphics card
• 2 GB of RAM

We also bought 2 Samsung SyncMaster 713N 17" TFT-LCD monitors.

I installed Red Hat Fedora Core 4 on AMD machine and Windows XP service pack 2 on Intel machine. That's why I couldn't write anything last night :-) I was too occupied :-) These new computers we bought are so nice. The Intel machine will be my workstation and AMD machine with Fedora Core 4 will be a server for us.

The old pictures I took on my mission trip to Kya Inn Seik Kyi, Karen state back in December 2003 during Christmas season. It was a very rewarding and fun trip for all of us. We had many Christmas songs and plays at villages along the way. We met many cease-fire groups. They were very powerful in those areas. One of the groups is Democratic Karen Buddhists Army (DKBA). There were a few others. I don't remember all.

A quick shot of soldiers taken secretly from our bus

Water Melon vendor along the highways in Burma

How we crossed a small stream in remote places in Burma

Yahoo-ish Myanmar search engine and where I stand on theirs

I found out about this very Yahoo-ish Myanmar search engine. What are they trying to do? Trying to invite Yahoo to sue them? :-)

http://www.myanma.com

I clicked on "myanmar sex" listed under "keyword 5"

And guess what results I got? :-)

Yep, my page on the very top. :-) I don't remember posting anything about sex :-) Maybe I have pictures of very cute students of mine from Myanmar Institute of Theology. :-) But I am sure they are not naked :-)

Burma in the UN security council?

http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=5251&z=153

In a letter Tuesday to the council president, Bolton asked for a briefing to address "the deteriorating situation in Burma."

I wonder what the future of Burma will be. It just can't be like this the rest of our lives. The current government has been in power since 1989. It's been around for 17 years. Nothing lasts for ever in this world.

I really want to live in Burma if the Internet access in Burma is just as free as Thailand. :-) Even if I make less money, I don't mind. I have lived in several countries now. Here are the chronological order of where I have lived in the past.

• Myanmar (August, 1976 - May, 1998)
• USA (May, 1998 - December, 2002)
• Myanmar (December, 2002 - December, 2004)
• Laos (December, 2004 - May, 2005)
• Thailand (May, 2005 - July, 2005)
• Myanmar (July, 2005 - November, 2005)
• Thailand (November, 2005 - Present)

I don't really care where I live any more as long as I have a free and open access to the information.

Where is our country leading? If you can help for the developement of Burma in any ways, please do.

New Mon State Party won't attend the convention

http://english.dvb.no/news.html?id=6000

During an interview with DVB today on 3 December, NMSP secretary Nai Hantha said that the party decided not to attend the convention because of the lack of the right to discuss matters freely and openly.

My people have lost the chance to play the game if they decided not to attend the convention.

My collection of pictures while I was in Burma

The followings pictures were taken by my friend, Waw Lay, on his trip to Mogok using my camera back in 2004.

Mogok

Golden Butterfly Hotel in Mogok

Lisu Church in Mogok

My friend, Waw Lay and the pastor in front of Lisu Church in Mogok

My friend, Waw Lay with Lisu hunting equipments

Slippers

Basket

Dagon University Thin Bon Gyi

I got this through the forwarded emails from my friend.

UN Security Council delays US move on Myanmar

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1359592

An earlier U.S. attempt to raise the focus on political repression in Myanmar was rebuffed in June when Russia, backed by China and Algeria, argued that the issue was outside the council's mandate to ensure international peace and security.

Our country's future remains bleak as the International community talks and talks. I personally think that people inside the country can do more for the development of our country. I am really sorry I can't be in Burma right now. I enjoyed my two years at the Myanmar Institute of Theology even though I had to go through reverse culture shock terribly after my 4+ years in the States.

Signaling Vulnerabilities in Wiretapping Systems

http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretapping

If you think that any government secret agents around the world are listening to the conversations between you and your girlfriend, here is how to turn off the wiretapping system. Hopefully, it will still work until a few months from now until they upgrade the system.

Here is the detailed paper in pdf.

Sweet December!

Every December the past few years while working at the Myanmar Institute of Theology, I got a chance to go on mission trips to remote villages all over Burma. However, this December I guess I will be stuck here in Bangkok :-)

Aye Min Min Oo and Si Si Htun while on mission trip with me and other students

Our group going to Kayinn Seik Kyi for a mission trip 2 years ago

Pictures from recent fire breakout in Hlaing, Yangon (Rangoon)

Pictures courtesy of my friend