Stephanie Madden

Koreans work hard. There is absolutely no doubt about that, and in fact, the average employee in Korea works 2423 hours per year, the highest level among 30 OECD countries. Students also work incredibly hard, and for Korean high school students, their time in school is a marathon test of endurance for the all important university entrance exam, which happened to be last week. From the people I’ve talked to, it’s not uncommon for a typical Korean teenager to get up at 6 am and not get home until 1 or 2 am, their days filled with school, and additional schooling at various academic academies and English language schools. All of this is to ensure they get into one of the top three universities in Korea, which in essence will guarantee them a good job in the future.

This Korean mentality of always working for the pursuit of money or further education to be more competitive in the Korean system is in stark contrast to my life right now, and for me, I am seeing the absolute freedom in having time to observe, muse, think, wonder, read, stroll, and greet each day with an anticipation of the surprises and opporutunities that will arise. Until now, I think I have had more of a “Korean” mentality towards life that kept me constantly busy with school, clubs, sports, various musical lessons, and other ways to keep from being idle. For me, though, I am discovering a renewed wonder for simply living and exploring without a syllabus or firm agenda. While this might sound pretty easy, for a “to-do” lister like myself, it has been a shift in mentality for me to not look at each day as a series of activities to cross off a list, with the fulfillment at the end of the day coming from the number of activities accomplished. Now, my sense of accopmlishment comes from the nuggets of insight I obtain each day about the different cultures I am in, human nature, myself, and of course, my ever present pursuit of the idea of freedom. While I will be re-entering the world of schedules, syllabi, and assignments next year when I begin graduate school in the fall, I will be taking with me this new mentality of finding time to be idle, taking each day as it comes and learning from it. I think we can lose sight of how the activities of our day-to-day life affect our freedom, and that maybe, by choosing to not be too busy every once in awhile to just experience life without a schedule or to-do list, we may just find in that moment we are a little bit freer.

My first full day in Seoul, I decided to undertake the quintessential Korean experience–I went to a public bath.  For those of you unfamiliar with Korean public baths (also called spas and saunas), they are something akin to the lodge that Frank Barone goes to in Everybody Loves Raymond.  The public baths are social events where people go with family and friends and stay for hours.  For a pretty small fee, you can go to the public bathhouse and stay all day.  Men and women separate into different facilities where you undress completely and everybody walks around naked, with absolutely no shame or trying to cover anything up.  Koreans let it all hang out.  After locking up your belongings, you head to the sauna area and take a shower before entering into the communal tubes.  The key to the Korean bath experience is to alternate between hot and cold pools.  There are basically several hot tubes of varying degrees in the room, as well as a cold-water pool and saunas of different temperatures.  You rotate from different pools as long as you like, which produces a tingling sensation and sense of euphoria.  Koreans also like to scrub themselves completely clean, and many times you will see friends and family members scrubbing each other.  I spent about an hour in this area before donning the uniform that they give you to walk around in the shared facilities for men and women.  The spas with the extra facilities are called jjimjilbangs.  In this area I spent some time in the massage chair and then went to a room and took a nap on the floor with a group of Korean men and women while watching the Mummy Returns.  I honestly can’t really imagine something like this in the United States!

For me, this experience of a public bath was really liberating and gave me a new sense of freedom.  I did get a few curious glances as I was the only foreigner there, but there was no self-consciousness from anybody.  People were really comfortable in their own skin, and young and old alike were gathered together for this shared experience.  The public baths are as integral to Korean culture as kimchi, and I’m definitely a fan of both.

For my first three nights in Seoul, I am being hosted by an American couple named Rachel and Nathan (another Couchsurfing connection).  Both have been teaching English here for the past 4 years.  After telling them about my project, Nathan offered to help me out by asking his adult class of Korean students to write what they feel freedom means to them.  Here are the responses.  Thanks for the help, Nathan!  (*Note-I typed the responses as they were written, so keep in mind they are all in the process of learning English.  Expressing an idea like freedom in a non-native language is really impressive!)

“Freedom, it is the way to find out person’s own ego and be the person who can express their own real personality that shows their ego.  Be your self, that is freedom.”—Bomme

“You can find out your freedom inside you.  Even if you walk around all over the world, if your mind’s closed to outside, it’s not true freedom.  You need to realize your own freedom in your mind.  Listen to your own voice.”

“I think freedom is the right to do anything I want unless it bothers others.  Our behavior has to and need to be limited by social rules and expensive inevitability.  However, within that limitation we can dream and practice anything.  That’s the freedom!”—Sunny Cheon

“For me, traveling everywhere doesn’t mean freedom.  In my case, being with my family, studying what I want, and etc. (such as daily life) mean freedom.  I feel free when I do what I get used to.  There can be a contradiction.”—Jiwon Choi

“That I can think, speak, and act on my own.”

“I think freedom is self-control.  If not, it is just unreliability.”—Anthony

“To act one’s own way how one’s feel like.”—Choi Jong-Wan

“Freedom doesn’t mean that I can make someone uncomfortable and unreliable when I pursue my way I want to go.  Just look around and take everything into your consideration.”—Seon Jeong Yoon

“Freedom is having a cup of coffee with friends and favorite people.”

“Freedom means responsibility to me.  I have a freedom and I can do everything what I want.  But those actions need responsibility.  Because of this, freedom is good and sacred.”—Juyeon (Judy)

“If I don’t have to worry about money, my family, and my future, that will be freedom to me.  I mean, that if there is no stress in my mind, that could be freedom of my life.”—Si-eun

“I can say my opinion to everyone.  I think that is the “freedom.”—Gilbert Lee

“Freedom is that nobody doesn’t touch and interfere my life.  I just enjoy my routine without any concern or other people’s insight.”—Eunkyung Park

“Freedom is start of creative thinking.  The biggest difference between human and animal is ability to think, so without freedom we are not humans anymore.”—Brian

“Freedom means that I have the right to think what I’d like to do and what I should do in my life.”

“Freedom is enjoying my life but not bothering other guys, whatever I want to do.  I can do it but I don’t have to bother anyone.  If there is something you like, but it can be bothering someone, don’t do that.  Find another thing.”—Patrick

“I can do everything whatever I want within protection to freedom of others.”

“Freedom is air.  It’s dispensable.  Everyone who was in military serve knows how valuable it is.”

“To me, freedom is…think, talk, and act without any inhibition.  I can be a queen in my imagination because I can think freely.”—Hyojin Choi

“Freedom, it is getting away from anything human beings have created.”—Steve Kim

“Sometimes I feel the freedom when I enjoy any moment.  If I want to go, I do.  If I want to do something, I do for that.  I have to have health body, enough time, and some money.  But the best important is my willing to want something.”—Eunice

“The mean to me is the state I was not related to anyone or anything and feel free and I can do almost everything.”

“Freedom is living follow what I think right and love.”

“Freedom isn’t have a block.  It can be all.  I want to free.”—Woody

“Freedom means to me, it’s simple.  I think journey is only one.”–Hailie

I was a Communication Studies major at Vanderbilt, and one of the key things I learned from my classes was that when presenting a problem to people, you also have to present solutions.  I think that it is beyond clear that there is a problem in Burma, one that is costing millions of people their lives.  And while the situation in Burma can seem so overwhelming, and that attempts to help are futile, if everyone were to contribute in some small way to the situation, these amazing organizations doing such important work would have more resources in which to operate.  I hope that everyone who reads my blog learned something new about the situation in Burma, whether you have known about this for a long time or are new to it like I am.  I think that educating ourselves is an important part in contributing to the situation in Burma.  We need to talk about it and not forget those who are suffering and dying each day.  Read books and articles about the situation in Burma.  The Perfect Hostage: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi by Justin Wintle is a place to start.  Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule by Christina Fink is another good place to start.

All of these organizations also need more financial support.  Here are the websites for some of the organizations that I met with and have been told about during my trip.

http://www.burmainstitute.org/aboutUs.html
http://www.partnersworld.org/
www.bget.org
www.maetaoclinic.org
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/
www.aappb.org
www.ncub.org
www.ftub.org
www.khrg.org
www.nldla.org
www.freeburma.org
www.uscampaignforburma.org

You can also boycott companies that choose to do business in Burma, which only further supports the military government financially.  Here is a list of organizations with known to do business with Burma.
http://www.global-unions.org/spip.php?page=burma

There is also a great need for volunteers at the Thai-Burma border, and there are opportunities for doctors, teachers, engineers, students, anyone who wants to help!  There are a lot of opportunities you can find online if you’re interested!  There are also volunteer opportunities and internships for organizations working to change the situation in Burma that are located internationally.

My final day in Mae Sot I was able to visit a variety of organizations based on humanitarian aid to those in Burma and those living in refugee camps in Thailand.  One of the organizations that I thought was so incredible was called Border Green Energy Team (www.bget.org).  BGET uses sustainable technology to bring about change in the ethnic minority areas inside and outside of Burma.  Some of the projects that BGET works on are bringing electricity to clinics in Burma.  One of the problems with providing health care to those living as displaced populations in Burma is being able to transport medicines and vaccines that need to be refrigerated.  BGET creates solar energy systems that allow for refrigeration in areas without electricity.  They go in and install these systems, and then give the people who will be living and working there the knowledge of how to maintain and operate the systems so that they can continue using them (the systems are also easily dismantled if the army comes).  Another project of BGET is to provide solar cookers to the displaced populations in Burma.  I had never thought about it before, but if these groups use fire to cook their foods, it creates smoke, which jeopardizes their hiding positions.  But using solar cookers, which are light and easy to transport, there is no smoke.  How cool!  BGET also has projects utilizing hydropower and biogas systems in these areas for projects such as providing electricity to schools in the areas.  I was blown away by the work and ingenuity of this group, and encourage you to visit their website for more information about it!

Another place we visited was the Mae Tao clinic (www.maetaoclinic.org), which is internationally known and renowned clinic, and was even visited by Laura Bush in August.  This clinic, started by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrants, and other people who cross the border from Burma to Thailand.  The clinic, which has been in operation since 1989, is now a large complex providing all sorts of medical treatments to the Burmese populations.  I had a chance to meet Dr. Cynthia while I was there, and was struck by her humbleness despite the incredible accomplishments she has had in her life.  She has even been dubbed the “Mother Teresa of Burma.”  Her eyes, though, were twinged with a sadness of a woman who has witness more suffering than any one person should, but this is because she invites it to her so that she may heal it.  The story of Dr. Cynthia and the Mae Tao clinic is fascinating, and I encourage you to read more about it at (www.maetaoclinic.org/aboutus.html).  Meeting people like Dr. Cynthia gives me complete confidence that the situation in Burma will eventually improve and that the military junta will be replaced, and the compassion of the people of Burma will replace the brutality of the military junta.  For as Aung San Suu Kyi has said, “There will be change because all the military have are guns.”

The final organization we visited was the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (www.aappb.org).  This group works to monitor the situation of political prisoners in Burma (there are currently 2,120 according to their website),  provide food and medicine to prisoners, publicize their reports to international bodies, and much more to improve the condition of the prisoners in their country whose only crime was expressing their belief in a different way for Burma to be governed.  We had the opportunity to ask questions to three former political prisoners who now work for this organization in order to help their colleagues.  The imprisonment time for those we talked to ranged from 5 to 14 years.  Some of them spent a third of their lives in prison for simply voicing an opinion different from the military junta.  In a video that the organization showed us, Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner herself, said that if there are political prisoners in a country, then there can be no democracy.  So the release of the political prisoners in Burma is vitally important if Burma is to ever become a democratic country.  In a quote from the movie by Aung San Suu Kyi, she said that “If you cannot say what you wish, then you are not free as an individual or society.”  Even for those in Burma who are not in jail, they are in many ways prisoners in their own countries, stripped away of their freedoms and rights.

All of the organizations I have talked to who are trying to bring change to Burma have so far wanted to do so through peaceful means and use of the international system. However, there are also armed resistance movements happening in Burma, and for nearly 60 years there has been a civil war waging in Burma—60 years, can you even imagine that? For part of my trip to Mae Sot, I was able to connect with a group of exchange students from the US who are studying abroad in Thailand at Payap University through the Thai and Southeast Asian studies program (http://thaistudies.payap.ac.th) who happened to be on a trip to Mae Sot at the same time as me, so I was able to tag along with them on one day of their trip to Mae Sot. At a dinner one evening with the group, the vice-president of the Karen National Union spoke to us about his experiences. The KNU began an armed struggle against the Burmese government in 1948 through its armed wing called the Karen National Liberation Army (www.karen.org/knu/knu.htm). The KNU and KNLA fight the Burmese military through guerilla warfare. The Karen state is located at the Thai-Burma border (here is a map: http://www.khrg.org/maps/2006maps/Burma2006.jpg). David Takapaw, the man who spoke to us, became a child solider at the age of 14 (child soldiers are a huge problem in the struggle in Burma). In 1978 he joined the Karen resistance. David believes that the Burmese military is a fascist regime, exercising extreme racism and nationalism combined with militarization for the eradication of the Karen people. Many governments classify the actions of the KNLA as terrorist activities, including the USA, largely because of its broad definition of terrorism because of the Homeland Security Act. However, many refugees from the Karen state have problems resettling in the US because of their former memberships with the KNU. What David highlighted in his discussion with us is that the actions of the KNU and KNLA are purely self-defense. How many of us could just sit back while our friends and family members were murdered, raped, and tortured? I think that the struggle of the KNU and KNLA is important to highlight in conjunction with the work of the other organization working for change in Burma. While there might not be agreement on the best way to change the situation in Burma, many people and groups, both inside and outside of Burma, are working tirelessly to do so.

I also had the opportunity to meet with the Members of Parliament Union (MPU) in Mae Sot.  The MPU is composed of members of the 1990 government elected in Burma that are now living in exile.  Members are from the NLD, ethnic-based political parties, and independent MPs.  It was an incredible experience to sit in a room full of elected government officials who are being denied their rightful place in government, but who are working tirelessly to rectify this situation so that they can take over from the destructive military junta and restore the country that they all love and hope to return to.  Many people in the room personally lived with Aung San Suu Kyi in the 90s when she was released from house arrest before being put under house arrest again.  I was so fortunate to have been able to meet with them, and they are more than happy to share their stories and opinions so that more of the world may know what is happening in Burma.

The MPU works on monitoring the political situation in Burma and lobbying the international community to put pressure on the military junta.  They lobby organizations such as the UN, EU, and ASEAN.  However, the MPU and other organizations lobbying for Burma face challenges when trying to turn to the UN because Russia and China both have veto powers in the Security Council, and for China in particular, it gives enormous financial and moral support to the military junta in Burma because of Burma’s vast natural resources.  It is sad that an organization founded on the principles of human rights, supposed to represent the best ideals of humanity, is an ineffective organization in stopping any of these abuses around the world.  I cannot imagine the endless frustration of going to these organizations to try to get them to do something, with a majority of the countries of the world behind you, only to have your measures vetoed because of one or two nations.  However, the people of the MPU and the other organizations continue to do it because they believe in the peaceful resolution of the situation in Burma, and that change will one day come.  To the members of the MPU, they believe that the greatest freedom is political freedom, because from this freedom stems other freedoms.  Without political freedom, they feel there can be no economic freedom, and without economic freedom there can be no sustainable, peaceful development.

Finally, I also visited the Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC—www. blc-burma.org).  The mission statement of the BLC is “By vigorously opposing all unjust and oppressive laws, and by helping restore the principle of the Rule of Law, the Burma Lawyers’ Council aims to contribute to the transformation of Burma where all the citizens enjoy the equal protection of law under the democratic federal constitution which will guarantee fundamentals of human rights.”  The objectives of the BLC are to “promote and assist in the educating, implementing, restoring, and improving basic human rights, democratic rights, and the rule of law in Burma; assist in the drafting and implementing a constitution for Burma, and in associated matters of legal education; and participate and cooperate in the emergence of a Civil Society in Burma.”  The BLC mainly works with Burmese migrant populations in Thailand, a doubly oppressed group that has had to flee their homeland in order to save their lives, but once they come to Thailand are often exploited by employers and have their rights stripped away once more.  The migrant workers know that they are having many of their rights violated in Thailand, but they need the money to send back to their families.  The BLC works to use the law and reform the law to bring change to Burma.  I talked to the public relations representative for the organization who was a professor of botany at a university in Burma before fleeing Burma four years ago because it was no longer safe for him.  He was telling me that before he arrived in Thailand, he had no knowledge of rights per se.  However, he did know the difference between right and wrong, a distinction that if more people were able to make, we wouldn’t have these abuses and violations of each other, not only in Burma, but everywhere in the world.

While I was in Bangkok discussing my project with the guys of the Federation of Trade Unions-Burma, they suggested that I take a trip to Mae Sot, a town about 5 km from the Thailand and Burma border, and basically Burma in Thailand as the majority of the population of the town is from Burma.  So, during my trip to Chiang Mai I also made a side trip to this interesting and diverse town to further learn about the situation in Burma from those who have lived it.  I don’t think I can accurately describe how incredible my few days in this town were, and I am so glad that I went!  I am going to divide my writings for this trip into 2 parts, with the first part focusing on the political side of the work going on for Burma and the second part highlighting the humanitarian side.

Melissa Bates (Vanderbilt ’05) has been so amazing getting me in touch with the guys she works with in Thailand, and she definitely came through for me in connecting me with Win Hlaing, one of her co-workers in Mae Sot.  Win Hlaing was the youngest Member of Parliament elected in Burma’s 1990 election (the NLD—Burma’s party for democracy–overwhelming won this election, but the military government refused to recognize this results).  He was 22-years-old when he was elected.   Being 22 myself, I cannot even imagine being elected to represent my people.  However, because of his political beliefs, which, as for so many, are to replace the military government with the democratically elected government from the 1990 elections, Win Hlaing spent many years as a political prisoner and just released only recently.  He worked for the movement inside of Burma for a while, but the situation became too dangerous for him so he came to Mae Sot to continue his work.  While I was in Mae Sot, he arranged meetings for me for 4 different organizations working to change the political situation in Burma: the NCUB (National Council of the Union of Burma), the NLD-LA (National League for Democracy- Liberated Area), the MPU (Members of Parliament Union), and the BLC (Burma Lawyers’ Council).

The NCUB (www.ncub.org) is working for the abolition of the military dictatorship, internal peace, democracy, and the establishment of a genuine federal union in Burma.  Its main aims are national reconciliation, the emergence of a dialogue between ethnic forces and democratic forces, and the emergency of the peoples’ Parliament based on the 1990 general election results.  I had the opportunity to talk to the joint-general secretary of NCUB, Myint Thein, who discussed a lot of the background on the situation in Burma with me, which I’ve discussed some in past blogs so won’t go into much detail into that.  When I was asking Myint Thein about his views on freedom in Burma and what is needed, in addition to highlighting the basic human rights freedoms of expression, thought, religion, personal rights, he said that for Burma, as a multi-ethnic state, cultural rights are extremely important.  The population of Burma is estimated at being between 48-50 million, and this population is divided between at least 15 major ethnic groups.  The Burmese government is working for the systematic eradication of many of these ethnic groups, most clearly that of the Karen ethnic minority.  There has been much speculation as to if this situation qualifies as genocide.  Personally, I think it most definitely does, but I don’t think that the international community wants to label the situation as such because then it would have to do something to stop what is happening in Burma.  Being able to live in peace, and to be able to be safe and free to belong to particular ethnicity and culture, is a fundamental freedom that is taken away from millions of people in Burma.

My next meeting was with the NLD-LA (www.nldla.org).  The National League for Democracy is a political party founded in 1988 and headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.  The NLD-LA is different from the NLD in Burma, but it advocates the same position of the NLD in calling for tripartite dialogue between the SPDC (the military junta), the NLD, and representatives from the ethnic minority groups in Burma.  The leader of the NLD-LA who I talked to gave me an interesting background on how the unrest for democracy and change in Burma came about.  He told me that in 1979, the people of Burma had access to international news for less than an hour a day, but in that time they had the opportunity to see the freedoms of other countries in the world and compared those situations to their own.  This caused people to start to think that like the people in the other countries of the world, they are human beings as well, so why can’t they enjoy the same freedoms as well?  Another important event for the fueling of unrest in Burma was Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost in Russia.  The people of Burma saw a world super power reexamining its policies and enacting political change, so additionally, they began to think that they could do the same in their country.  The man I talked with, as have so many of the people I have talked to about Burma, was involved in the 1988 uprising in Burma and worked closely with Aung San Suu Kyi, and spent 14 years in prison for his activities.  Myint Soe, the man I was talking to, had one of the most powerful insights into freedom for me.  He told me that whenever he sees poverty, pain, fear, etc., he does not feel free.  As long as other human beings are not free, none of us can be.  I think this is an important perspective to keep in mind, especially when thinking about places that are so geographically removed from us.  Violations of human rights that occur in other parts of the world should not be seen as only problems for the regions in which they occur; a violation of the rights of some should be seen as a violation of all humanity.

Because this post is getting a little lengthy, I am going to talk about the other 2 political organizations I visited in a separate post.  I think the issues that were raised during my time in Mae Sot and what I learned and saw are too important to worry about brevity, so I apologize for the long reading, but I hope that you find it as interesting and inspiring as I did!

Before heading to Mae Sot (a town right at the Thailand-Burma border) the other day, I had a chance to sit down with a Fulbright scholar from the U.S. named Megan who was just finishing up a year of research in Chiang Mai for her project on youth activism at the Thailand-Burma border, in what she has dubbed the “post-Saffron generation” (so, youth activism by those under 30 whose first major event of protest was the September 2007 protests that were violently suppressed by the government).  Megan has done a lot of work and research on the issue in Burma, and was so knowledgeable and excited to help me in my understanding of freedom in this region.

As I have discussed in earlier posts, forced labor is a huge problem in Burma, and a major human rights violation according to international standards.  However, Megan was telling me that many of the rural people in Burma do not conceptualize this forced labor as a violation of human rights, but more as a hassle and in a way a “civic duty.”  The idea of rights doesn’t occur to them because they don’t know what they are.  When discussing this, Megan brought up a fantastic point that while education may allow you to conceptualize the idea of freedom, it does not mean that freedom is different for those who have not been taught about freedom or rights.  For those who can’t put into words what freedom means, it doesn’t mean that its not there—it just needs to be given a voice.

Cyclone Nargis that affected Burma in May 2008 changed a lot for the country.  The world became more aware of the level of hatred and cruelty present in the Burmese government as they effectively blocked off international aid to the millions of people affected by this storm, allowing (and wanting) so many of the citizens of their country to die.   But more than showing the world the true nature of the military junta, it also re-energized and showed the world that there is a vibrant civil society in Burma itself.  The people of Burma desperately wanted to help each other, and the humanitarian assistance they were giving to each other was not political, but given out of a decency, love, and compassion for each other that is so present in Burma, even if this decency does not include the military government.  One of the 5 benchmarks of democracy put forth by Linson Stephen in 1996 is a civil society, which is growing inside of Burma, so there is hope that a democratic society will emerge in Burma.  It is what the people there want, as 90% of the population is against the current military government.  Megan believes that Nargis served an important role of giving the people inside of Burma a chance to engage and counter the actions of the military government, even if the actions were not political in nature.  Therefore, the idea of freedom became proactive, an important shift for a country in which the idea of freedom has for so long been reactive.

I am absolutely in love with Thailand, a feeling that has only been heightened by the hospitality and warmth shown to me by my Thai host family in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand! My connection to them is far removed. As I mentioned before, I am pretty much a networking pro now, and I was fortunate to be put in touch with Mew and her family through a networking chain of 3 people, none of whom I’ve ever met! Despite this, they have shown me nothing but love and immediately took me in as one of the family! I am so lucky! My host family consists of Mew, who is the mother and manager of a bank, Khun Yai, who is Mew’s mother, and Tew, Mew’s 16-year-old son. Her husband works in Bangkok, so I haven’t had the opportunity to meet him yet. Despite a language barrier, we all get along really well and the experience has been great! I spend most of my time with Khun Yi because Mew has work and Tew has school, and while Khun Yai doesn’t speak much English, and my Thai is limited to saying things like “delicious,” “a little bit,” and “I’m full” (can you tell that Thai people like to feed me food!), we have become instant pals (and have a tendency to break into laughing fits together). Mew has a friend from college who has a daughter my age, so Fern comes over quite a bit to hang out with me as well. They’ve taken me to do so many fun things, from a batik painting class to numerous handicraft centers where I’ve seen the production of umbrellas, silk, and lacquer wear to an elephant camp! Chiang Mai is a little slice of heaven, and I can certainly see why so many people flock here and why so many ex-pats move here! It’s fabulous!