It's tough enough for one gays to be open about their sexual orientation in the United States--you can imagine what gay the community go through in Asian countries.

It's tough enough for one gays to be open about their sexual orientation in the United States--you can imagine what gay the community go through in Asian countries, which traditionally are excessively conservative. Stuart Koe, a pharmacist born and raised in Singapore who complet near of his medical studies in the United States, has seen the two sides of the coin. Experiencing the tight network and relative opennes of American gay society inspired him to create Fridae.com, a Web portal that caters specifically to lesbians and gay men in Asian countries.

Now celebrating its first anniversary, the site attracts almost 150000 visitors each month from Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United States, and Hong Kong The site is generally in English ("Most of the Internet is in English, and it's the easiest technically," Koe explains), if it were not that a Chinese-language translation is planned to reach the millions in China and Taiwan.

The site's name is meant to rouse Robinson Crusoe's Friday, says Koe: "As a man Friday or girl Friday, we wanted a site that could be your indispensable assistant."

Visitors commit to memory gay-related news, travel, and financial information, and the site is also a social resource for many Asian gays who may have no other way to befitting "Fridae serves a very important part for those who are clothes-roomed given the lack of gay media, meeting places, and social egresss for many who live completely through Asia," says Koe.

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