Chapter 4. “The Battle of The Fonts” During the fieldwork, I realized that there was a technical issue to address regarding Burmese digital script when researching the use of Facebook and the internet. After a while, I was introduced to two different fonts: Unicode and Zawgyi and was told that these two are not friends. Since most of my informants have a background with technology in some way or other, and because I have an interest in more technical parts of the technology, I spend some time trying to figure out what this talk of digital fonts was all about. What is the conflict between Zawgyi and Unicode? Is there even any conflict to talk about? Why is it oblivious for some and self-evident for others? What do these encode systems affect and how do they work? Moreover, how are they connected to Facebook? These questions are complicated and include an explanation of several layers. To be able to give a proper answer, I need to explain the background of basic coding systems and how the coding itself functions. The historical context discussed in the earlier chapter is relevant as well since the government’s policy has restricted access to the internet and smartphones in general. In the end, everything is connected and affect each other in different, and sometimes unexpected ways. I had eventually gained some knowledge of the Unicode and Zawgyi conflict, the two encoding systems this chapter focus on, but I required some more information to be able to understand it properly. With little time left of my stay, I decided to gather a focus-group to gain some useful information regarding these fonts. The reactions I received asking about Unicode and Zawgyi was not as expected, and the conversation broadens my horizon. I realized that this has to do with more than just technical issues requiring specific knowledge, this conflict is intertwined into several aspects of social life and things I had already discussed with my other informants without realizing it at the time. At the very last week of fieldwork, I gathered a focus-group with some local students. The intention was a conversation, or to observe a conversation, between the Burmese students who talked about the different topics, but specifically focus on fonts. I hoped to gain some more insights and information about topics considering Facebook and particularly the font issue. Eventually, I found myself in a tiny room, behind the reception, at a business school located inside a shopping mall. The secretary served some tea and energy drink, as is expected in Myanmar, and later on what I craved in the extreme heat, cold water. There was a little group of seven curious students waiting to enter the room. All of them had attended my lecture on basic research methods earlier that month and volunteered to be part of the 47