The T'aï-Chi-Chuan

T'aï-Chi-Chuan is a Chinese martial art. It is the most popular gymnastics in China, played at the daybreak in small public gardens. The T'aï-Chi is also named “the circulation of the chi".
This term is translated by "Energy" or "Breath", translation recalling energy, physical or moral force of an organism. Another way to translate "chi" is vital Energy.

T'aï-Chi-Chuan recalls at the same time a slow dance and a fight with slow motion. It is a question of performing slow and flexible gestures. Besides, breathing is one of the centers of the discipline ; it must be slow and deep.

Movements aren't unpredictable, they are codified and belong to the education :
- keep the summit of the skull from above,
- let shoulders fall,
- do not use force,
- remain always discharged,
- accomplish fluid movements
- and make sequence of movements.
These sequences will develop suppleness, coordination and in a general way dynamism. So, T'aï-Chi-Chuan is a method to manage stress and find peace.

There are different applications of the T'aï-Chi-Chuan. First, someone can use blows hit with feet, knees, hands or elbows.
Then, it exist a T'aï-Chi by put pressures on holes to cause damage (respiratory or blood blockages) and on the points of acupuncture which can draw away disturbances of the organism (mental state, destruction of the internal organs, K.O or even death). In general, the T'aï-Chi-Chuan is played in bare hands, and there are forms of tai-chi with fan, dirk, sword, staff, sword.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy held his long-awaited meeting with the Dalai Lama on Saturday, despite warnings from China that it could have a negative impact on links between the two countries.
The French president and the Tibetan spiritual leader sat down for a 30-minute talk behind closed doors in Gdansk (Poland) during celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of former Polish President Lech Walesa's Nobel Peace Prize.
Sarkozy told reporters before leaving for the airport that the meeting went "very well."
"I told him how much importance I attach to the pursuit of dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese leadership," Sarkozy said. "The Dalai Lama confirmed what I already knew, that he is not demanding independence."
The Dalai Lama did not talk to reporters before or after the meeting.
Sarkozy also said the Tibetan leader voiced concerns about his homeland, while the French leader said those worries "are shared in Europe."

Asked about the situation in Tibet, Sarkozy said: "The Dalai Lama shared with me his worries, worries which are shared in Europe. We have had a wide discussion of this question."

Sarkozy Defies China With Dalai Lama Talks

Beijing's unusually vocal criticism of Sarkozy's plan to meet the Dalai Lama is linked to the fact that Paris holds the European Union's rotating presidency, diplomats say.
In Paris, an official said there had been no sign yet of any Chinese boycott of French products. The EU is China's biggest trade partner and supermarket chain Carrefour employs tens of thousands of people in China and is the biggest purchaser of Chinese goods in France.
French companies were subjected to Chinese boycotts and demonstrations earlier this year after the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay was disrupted by anti-China protesters.
Earlier on Saturday, the Dalai Lama called for dialogue and compassion to solve the world's problems.
"Warfare failed to solve our problems in the last century, so this century should be a century of dialogue," he told delegates, including Walesa, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The Dalai Lama, who met Tusk privately on Saturday, praised Polish courage in resisting past oppression.
The 73-year-old monk is a popular figure in Poland, where some see in his struggle with China's communist authorities echoes of their own battles under Walesa against Soviet-backed communist rule that ended in 1989.
The Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 after a failed insurrection against Chinese rule in Tibet, occupied by People's Liberation Army troops from 1950.

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Paris)

(Writing by Gareth Jones, editing by Elizabeth Piper)

http://www.dalailama.com/

The manga phenomenon: its origin

Manga was born in Japan in the 18th century, and this new sort of comic, literally exploded in 50's and 60's, when the Land of the Rising Sun has experienced a major and dazzling economic expansion.
At the beginning, the manga comic book's purpose was to propose a practical and cheap solution to spend time between the various free moments of a worker's day (trips and waiting rooms of subways, buses, trains, Shinkansen), and for all types of workers (from businessmen to simple workers).

The draftsmen of mangas, called mangakas, use a very economical paper, because this is recycled. It looks like newspapers.
First mangas' texts were neither sophisticated, nor very big. Indeed, an average Japanese can read a manga with 200 pages in only 15 minutes!

Mangas deal with a lot of varied themes, but the most often, we can find: love stories, martial arts, housing estate, science fiction, and also eroticism or pornography.

WHO IS THE DALAI LAMA?

The Dalai Lama (or in Tibetan “tabla’i blama”)

The Dalai Lama is for the Tibetan people the spiritual leader of Tibet. From the XVII to the middle of XX, he was at the head of the Tibetan government. Nowadays he rules the Tibetan central Administration.

The Dalai Lama has got three main commitments in his life:

- His Holiness first commitment is the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. All human beings are the same. We all want happiness and do not want suffering. Even people who do not believe in religion recognize the importance of these human values in making their life happier.
- His Holiness second commitment is the promotion of religious harmony and understanding among the world's major religious traditions. Despite philosophical differences, all major world religions have the same potential to create good human beings. Therefore it is important for all religious traditions to respect one another and recognize the value of each other's traditions.
- His Holiness is a Tibetan and carries the name of the Dalai Lama. Tibetans trust him. Therefore, his third commitment is to the Tibetan issue. His Holiness has a responsibility to act as the free spokesperson of the Tibetans in their struggle for justice.

According to the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine, each human being is reincarnated in other one after its death. The Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the last Dalai Lama, who represents Buddha and the other Dalai Lamas.