Ingredient

Dough:

• 50g butter, melt and cold
• 300ml warm milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 pack (84g) of custard-powder
• 500g flour
• 1 pack (7g) dry yeast

Filling:

• 150g brown sugar
• 2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon
• 100g walnuts, chopped

Frosting:

• 50g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
• 15g butter, smooth
• 100g powdered sugar
• some vanille aroma
• some lemon-juice
• some cinnamon

How to make…

Mix all dough-ingredients.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap/cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon.

Roll dough into a rectangle/ or flat.
Daub the dough with the butter.
Spread with cinnamon mixture.

Roll up dough (NOTE: Rolling the log too tightly will result in cinnamon rolls whose centers pop up above the rest of them as they bake.)

With a knife, lightly mark roll into 1 1/2-inch section. Use a sharp knife. Place cut side up in prepared pan, flattening them only slightly.

Cover and let rise in a warm place for approximately 45 to 60 minutes or until doubled in size (after rising, rolls should be touching each other and the sides of the pan).

Bake in a convection oven (175°C) approximately 15 to 20 minutes until they are a light golden brown. Or bake in a regular oven (200°C) approximately 20 to 25 minutes in a regular oven until they are a light golden brown.

Enjoy with Tea or coffee ~~

Recipe source: http://www.nibbledish.com/people/aberweger/recipes/cinnamon-rolls-kanelbullar

After half year, I finally went to visit IKEA in Shanghai. On the way to IKEA, I kept repeating “Wo Yao qu IKEA!- I want to go to IKEA” several times, but taxi driver did not understand it. Turned out to be IKEA is called 宜家 (yí jiā) in China.

I was surprised how IKEA looked same exactly as one in Sweden. I recognized all the furniture and things that I saw from Sweden 2 years ago.

The main purpose of going to IKEA was to have Swedish Food, especially Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs). Although there was super long queue to get the Köttbullar, despite of huger it still did not stop us to get it. (Going to IKEA on Saturday evening is not a good idea!!)

In the restaurant section, not only  Köttbullar, but i also found Kanelbullar (cinnamon Buns). Somehow it really made me feel homesick. (funny i am not even Swedish) I remembered how I enjoyed FIKA having coffee and Kanelbullar and had relaxing time in Sweden. I immediately bought two Kanelbullar and brought back home.

I was bit suprised that all the products in IKEA were exactly same that was in 2-3 years ago. First I wonder if there is any innovation exist is IKEA, then  later I realized  perhaps this IKEA standard products is the strategy. This distinctive products make the ‘ IKEA brand’ and also make European people to feel nostalgia and exotic feel to Asians. I have to admit, being in IKEA, it really made me feel as if I am back in Sweden. If this was for my feeling, I guess for Swedes living in China would even feel home here.

Anyway, we ate our fill with various Swedish food and had little shopping. We went there to just to have dinner but I could not resist all the cheap attractive things displayed in IKEA.

Unfortunately frozen Köttbullar was all sold out, but i still got pepparkakor and two bags of salt lakrits. So I do not miss Swedish snack for a while. One coolest thing to live in Globalized era is such a thing like this, do not need to miss other culture while living in totally opposite continent.

무엇보다도 욘쇼핑 대학교의 가장 큰 장점은 아름다운 자연과 경치다. 학교나 시내를 다니는 길이 너무 아름다워 때로는 영화 속의 주인공이 된 것 같은 느낌이다. 스웨덴에서 5번째로 큰 도시임에도 가깝게 자연을 접할 수 있어서 머리가 복잡하고 심난할 때는 때때로 근처의 공원에서 산림욕도 하곤 했다.

<욘쇼핑 대학교>

욘쇼핑 대학교는 총 네 가지 학부로 나누어 진다. International Business School (국제 비즈니스 대학), Education and Communication (교육과 커뮤니케이션), Engineering (공학), Health Science (보건대학). 내가 교환학생으로 있었던 학부는 교육과 커뮤니케이션 학부 로 교과 과목의 선택의 폭도 넓어서 흥미로운 공부를 마음껏 (?) 할 수 있었다.

그리하여 고른 수업으로는 Communication and Technology, Intercultural and International Communication, Mass Media Studies, Swedish Language and Culture and Society 1, Visual Communication, Global Environment and Survival Issues, TV Production 입니다. 이 과목 중 스웨덴어와 문화1의 과목은 모든 교환학생들이 들어야 하는 필수 과목인데 스웨덴의 간단한 언어와 문화를 배우는 것은 물론이고 여러 나라에서 오는 교환학생들을 만나고 쉽게 친해질 수 있는 수업이다.  그 외 전공과목들은 실습위주이기 때문에 관련 회사 방문, 카메라 실습, 프로젝트 진행 등 많은 경험을 쌓을 수 있었다.

<수업형태>

수업형태는 한국과는 매우 다르다. 대부분 토론위주로 수업이 진행이 되는데, 교수님께서 미리 읽을 자료나 범위를 정해 주시면 다음 수업 전까지 해당되는 자료를 모두 숙지해가야 한다. 그 덕에 정말 열심히 공부했다. 미리 읽어가지 않으면 수업시간에 대채 사람들이 무슨 말을 하는지 도통 알아들을 수 없을뿐더러, 평소의 학습태도가 성적에도 반영되는 경우가 많기 때문이다. (정말 좋은 학습 시스템인 것 같다) 그 외에도 조를 짜서 프로젝트를 하는 형식, 마음에 맞는 사람들끼리 모여 수업을 발표하는 형식 등이 있으며 교수들의 역할은 학생들의 토론/발표 주제가 벗어날 때 방향설정과 조언 등을 해주시는 것이 대부분이다.

<각종행사>

총 네 학부를 합한 욘쇼핑의 교환학생의 수는 어마 어마 하다. 욘쇼핑 대학은 스웨덴 내에서 2번째로 가장 외국인 학생을 보유한 대학이기도 하다. 그렇기 때문에 새로운 이벤트나 행사가 끊이지 않는다. 인터내셔널 데이 (International day) 는 물론이고, 시나몬 빵 만들기 날, 퀄링 (Curling) 체험, 할로윈 파티, 러시아 여행, 핀란드 크루즈 여행, 덴마크 여행, 산타루시아 데이 이벤트 등 각종 문화, 스포츠, 여행 행사를 틈틈이 참가하여 견문도 넓히고 친구도 쉽게 사귈 수 있는, 새로운 경험을 추구하는 교환학생들에게는 딱! 인 행사들이 많다.

한국을 떠나 살다 보면 어려운 일들을 많이 겪게 되는 것은 사실이다. 부모님, 친구들도 보고 싶고, 난생 처음 손수 해먹는 나의 음식솜씨에 경악을 해 더더욱 엄마가 보고 싶을뿐더러, 거리의 간판들은 알 수 없는 언어로 써있으며, 슈퍼에 가도 대체 머가 먼지 모르겠다. 웬걸..심지어 날씨까지 도와주지 않는다. 스웨덴은 여름에는 백야현상, 겨울에는 흑야현상이 뚜렷하게 나타난다. 하지만 젊을 때 고생은 사서 하라는 말이 있듯이, 젊을 때의 이러한 여러 가지 경험과 고생들이 나중에 나의 큰 자산이 될 거란 생각이 든다.

* when someone propose toast- one has to start looking in the persons’ eye that sitting on the left side followed by right side and infront. After half way of the glass, one has to do the same motion but backword.

1. Appetizer- one has to talk only one who is sitting left to you.

(Usually woman sits left side of man that this means, man need to talk to woman that came to party together. )

2. Main dish- one has to talk to people who is sitting both left and right

3. Desert- one can talk to everyone, especially to person who sit infront of oneself.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47788427@N00/357968319

From lot of countries, you can experience that car dominates human. What I mean is that when pedestrian try to cross the road, one have to be very careful and check both directions to see whether car is coming or not. However in Sweden case, it is the car which has to look out for people. It is automatic and obvious rule in Sweden that car must stop for pedestrian to cross the road first no matter how many cars are waiting behind. Plus, it is rare to hear the sound of horn in Sweden. This could be cause of less population in Sweden compare to other countries. Nevertheless, still it is impressive to feel that pedestrian feel safe contrast to other countries where pedestrian have to be nervous all the time and being shouted by car drivers at little mistakes.

Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1012424

For some of culture such as Sweden and US might say that it is obvious and nothing strange about it, but some other cultures are not used to this kind of system. For instance, when author used to write report in Korea, as long as the sentence is rephrased (do not copy and paste), it was not considered as plagiarism. Not only author but many of international friends especially from Asian country had little hard time to adjust to Swedish education system.

The process of penalty of plagiarism in Sweden happens as following;

(1) Student has to send one’s report both to teacher and place called ‘urkund’ where they check all the report.

(2) When the report is accused as plagiarism, person who is involved in the accused report is called by Disciplinary committee and given one more chance defend him/herself. During this period, teachers have no authority to involve in this process.

(3) After meeting with Disciplinary committee, they decide whether report is plagiarized or not.

(4) If it is plagiarized, involved person can not participate in any of school activity during the grounded period or worse get expelled from school.

Once, student get involve with Disciplinary, it affects student’s time, reputation of the student, emotions and other effort that had been made become bubbles. (Sometimes more than month project) Therefore student has to really careful on every single sentence to write and check several times whether there are any mistakes. For example, copying music note is not allowed, using illegally downloaded music in any types of school report, presentation is prohibited and have to make sure every thing is properly cited especially for group reports, where it becomes more complicated when it comes to plagiarism.

Hearing all these plagiarism issues from people, It give good impressed of Swedish education system. Although it was tough period for author and many other people to adjust to Swedish system but personally feel that this process gave me big lesson starting form giving real credit to people who really put effort on their work. Whenever any sentence I use now, I think about how long that person have spent his/her time to come up with the sentence.

I guess many of us learnt not to lie and steal in the young age from parents and teachers. Cleary plagiarism is cheating and stealing It definitely has to be treated seriously across to whole country.

Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/869106

So it is very impressive to see how the size of the windows in Sweden is generally big and does not even have any security devices. Some houses do not even draw the curtain at night and in fact some houses even leave the lights on which can see the inside of the house pretty well. Even though I never heard any burglar accident during 2 years stay in Sweden at least in Jönköping. This is due to the fact that Swedish people tend to trust on people’s goodness.

For one more example, once I left my purse at library accidentally. After few hours I discovered that my purse was missing and quickly headed to library already assuming that the purse would probably had gone by now. Surprisingly purse was still there without any loss of money or cards. I had to admit how secure and trustworthiness Swedish people were. Personally thought is that Stable government and life style creates people’s surplus.

I am hoping that one day everyone would have clean window without any ugly protection devices.

Image source: http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/ (by felicitas)

As voice and rights of women rise, females no more wait for guys to come. Their attitude would be more like, “All the good guys are being taken while waiting. I would rather go out hunt myself to get best men.” So is this new era is that females started to advertise and males started to being chosen?

Sweden is well known for equal right of gender. After few years observation, personally it seems like Swedish women is becoming more masculine and men is becoming more feminine. In Sweden, it is not extraordinary to see women approach to guy but guys are rather too shy to approach to women. Even in the school classes, Swedish women tend to speak out their opinion much more than Swedish men.

Then is this means that next evolution is coming?

Or thinking reverse, Is this new strategy of men?

Men’s becoming feminine is not only in the case of Sweden but also in Asia. Looking at Asia trend, “Flower boy” is booming. Flower boys mean boys that are beautiful as flowers. Most of recent debut of Japanese and Korean male Idols are very feminine and sometimes even prettier than regular female but it does not mean that they are gay. They are straight and proud to be ‘pretty’ and think of their prettiness as identity. This is the new trend.

So the question is, should we see these phenomenon as next evolution that will reverse Darwin’s theory or simply men’s altering their strategy of advertisement?

Image source: theweb.tistory.com/158

It seems like Sambo is much publicized though out Sweden which proves that one of the Swedish royal family (Princess Madeleine) is living with her boyfriend in Stockholm. In addition, there are also rules for Sambo that if the couples split apart and need to separate their property or child right, they can go to court just like process of divorce.

It was the biggest culture shock in Sweden personally. For most of the young generation in Sweden feels that marriage is not that important yet I was brought up in a culture where marriage is the one of the most important issue in a life, plus living with partner before marriage is not even imaginable.

Due to globalization, all the cultures are merging. Two years ago, some of youngsters initiated co-habitation and it had brought up big discussion and debate in Korea. Whether this culture can settle down or can be accepted in Korea is still leaves question mark.

Until now, Swedish education has been foucus on the equalization. under under ideal of all the students should get same quality of education and neither clever nor slow student should be fouced or given special treatment which could be considered discrimination.

Realising that sweden are loosing brilliant student cause of lack of attention and motivation, this could be thier hidden (or probably obvious) step to rise from sleeping country into waking up.

20 high schools will be first introduced this special classes and expecting to see the impact of this introduction.

“Will it be considered as discrimination? or right for clever student to study with thier pace?”

source: The Local- Sweden’s news in English

http://www.thelocal.se/11984/20080524/