What would The Church do?

I like the song 'What would Brian Boitano do', from the old south park movie. The song is a parody of the phrase 'What Would Jesus Do'. So i decided to see where people look actually for guidance. Not only comparing this parody with the original saying but if possible with the various ranks in the church.

Now when i looked into the ranks of the church i found it very difficult to simplify. Therefore i compare only to ranks within the catholic church and even there i have to simplify. Interesting is also the wikipedia article on the hierarchy of the catholic church.

Figure 1: Google hits for the phrase 'what would * do'. Sorted roughly by ascending level within the hierarchy of the catholic church (from left to right). Articles were included in the search query when necessary.

Well... the winner is obviously 'What Would Jesus Do'. Now the next question which comes to my mind is where are people interesting in WWJD? The answer was obtained from google via regional interest search for the phrase 'What Would Jesus Do'

Figure 2: Darker color indicates higher search volume for WWJD

Obviously the regional search is not statistically relevant. Mainly due to search volume measured in english. So please refrain from citing this figure for anything than fun purposes ^^.

What really surprises me is the high position of Jamaica. Anybody an idea what they scored high?

Two Panoramas

I had a few days of and went with my wife on vacation. First to Sokcho (which is in the far north east) and then to Busan.

This is the view from my old dormitory in Dong Seo University Busan. One of many reasons why i stayed in korea ^^.

This photo was taken at an rest area half way between Seoul and Sokcho. 

DNA Sculpture at SNU Suwon campus

I went to the Suwon campus to attend a lecture a while ago and saw there this DNA sculpture / installation  thingy.

And in case you didn't know, yes SNU has a Suwon campus. Its in a techno park from Gyeongie province and consist of i believe 3 buildings. Originally it was intended for the Business school, but somehow they belived it not fancy / convenient enough so the higher ups sent the school of converging science there. The campus is conveniently reachable by a SNU owned shuttle bus. 

Instant Paratha at E-MART

We found some instant Paratha at E-MART, and couldn't stop ourselves from trying. Our expectations were not really high, mainly because until now all indian instant food we tried (except the CJ instant curry) was horrible. So without further ado the conclusion: This stuff is quite good. Quite heavy.... yeah its paratha what do you expect? ^^ Tastes very original but is a bit on the expensive side... i believe one pack of 5 or 6 for around 5000 won.

Now the next thing i expect is a decent stuffed Paratha. :P

The difference between Germany and the USA

The German and the US booth at the Seoul Intenrational Book Fair at Coex:

CJ Sausages

Among korean food manufacturers CJ is my favorite. This comes on the one hand from the high quality, but more importantly from the wide range of products. CJ focuses more on the high price segment in combination with a bit more international stuff. Worth a try are especially the CJ Udon noodles, as well as the CJ curries (which are by the way excellent).

It must be already one or two years since CJ started its 'european series' line of sausages. Their first was a normal 'wiener', very authentic in taste, but maybe a bit less juicy then the ones you would get in europe / germany. Now we saw two new additions to this product line: the 'Regensburger Frank' and 'Herb Flavored Frank'.

Call me ignorant but i never heard of Regensbugrer sausages... and i doubt that there exists something like a Regensburger Frank(furter) sausage ^^. A bit of internet search revealed that i am indeed ignorant ^^. The original Regensburerg sausage is a thick sausage intended for cooking (in germany known as knacker). Here the 'Regensburger frank' was thin, a bit short well salted and with a nice meat taste. Also positive was that the sausage had some bite. Cooking fitted the sausage well but frying destroyed the smoke taste. 

I guess in germany this one would be sold as wiener. 

After i saw green, curry and tea flavored sausages in korea im always a bit skeptical when seeing something claiming its herb flavored... however i was positively surpirsed about this 'Herb Flavored Frank'. ITS A REAL SAUSAGE!!! meaty, salty enough, smoked, well spiced, this sausage is just good. The herb taste they claim is nothing special, it's just majoran (or might be oregano - difficult to differentiate, but classically it would be majoran). Which you would expect in every good sausage ^^. This sausage could be fried but cooking brought the taste out better. Also the skin didn't brown well when fried. 

This one you could be classified in germany maybe as well spiced bockwurst.

All in all, both sausages are quite nice but the 'Herb Flavored Frank' is a real treat. Worth trying. 

SNU protests, a students view.

Today during lunchtime i got down to the administration building and wanted to know what students there are thinking, what motivates them and what they hope to achieve. Here is the transcript of a small ad-hoc interview with one of the students occupying the administration building:

Alex: Hello, my name is alex and im just curious what you are doing. So what are you doing?

Roah: We try to put a halt to the privatization of the SNU because of its characteristics, the privatization itself is wrong, and at the same time the way that it is implemented is also wrong. The university hasn't considered the students opinion on the privatization and they are not following the due course. Thats why we try to put a hold on it.

Alex: Can you tell a bit more in detail what you think is wrong about the privatization of SNU?

Roah: In my personal opinion if this university becomes a corporation, those departments that make money would be enlarged and those that can't would be reduced. Because after the university becomes a corporation they can pursue profit for them selfs without intervention from the government. i don't really know well about the specifics, but im pretty sure about the thing about the profitable and unprofitable departments.

Alex: Under which circumstances would you say i'm satisfied? What would be a reasonable outcome for you. When would you say 'now its enough, i will go home'?

Roah:  First of all the law that is enforcing this corporation should be revoked. If that law is revoked than the privatization committee is obsolete. If the law would be revoke that would be enough.

Alex:  what do you think about the demand for the 50% cut in overall tuition fees? Is that a reason why you joined here, or is that a separate issue?

Roah:  Personally i think there is some correlation, but its not highly correlated

Alex: So that is not your objective right now?

Roah: Thats right.

Alex: What do you think will be the outcome here? Will you succeed or will you fail?

Roah: I hope that we get some results in this month. If there are no results until july, i think i will be a bit hard for us to continue because the number of students who are interested in our cause are decreasing, we are loosing some initiative and there aren't many events, that we can use to mobilize students to participate in this more, during july and august. I think it will end in this month, after this it will be a bit hard for us.

Alex: And the last question, what was your personal reason to join?

Roah: Personal reason?

Alex: Were you outraged by the injustice, or were your friends joining, so you joined too. what was your personal motivation?

Roah: Im not really, like, outraged about this, but i think its wrong, it hasn't followed due course, and i was disappointed by how the administration reacted to out attempts to talk with them. I think these are the main reasons.

Alex: Sorry that wasn't the last question, the really last question is: would you consider yourself more conservative or more liberal? left wing, right wing... whats you general political orientation?

Roah: (laughs) Trying to be liberal.

Alex: Thank you for your time.

p.s. to avoid possible repercussions, the student who gave the interview chose Roah as his nickname.