Asian religions

Buddhism:

Is an oriental religion and philosophy stemming from teachings of the Buddha (India, VIth century avenue JC). The Buddhism, was bron from a reform of the Vedaism, developed in India and from the IIIth century before JC extended in all Asia.
At the beginning, the Buddhism is rather a philosophy which looks for a solution of the problem of the existence within the universe and a wisdom, an ethics passing by the renunciation and the research for salute. Its purpose is to go out of the cycle of reincarnations undergone by the man because of its ignorance and the weight of its acts. With the abolition of the desire tempter and by receiving the perfect illumination, we can reach the Nirvana (total delivery and the absolute truth) and eventually become Buddha (" the awakening ", state of holiness).
For the Buddhism, there is neither eternal soul, nor God, nor creative gods. The absence of divinity is not a postulate, but the consequence of the principle of the packaged production: " nothing is without cause and nothing is its own cause ". The Buddhism can be thus considered, of this point of view, as an atheistic philosophy.
The forms the most known for the Buddhism are:

• The way of the anciens (theravâda or " small vehicle ") essentially in India. This shape of the Buddhism considers that only the monks can reach(affect) the salute.
• The reform mahâyâna (" big vehicle "), especially in China, in Korea and in Japan, for which each can reach the salute by its merits. This Buddhism developed thanks to its syncretism with the pre-existent cults.
• The Lamaism (vajrayâna or " vehicle of diamond " or still Tantrism) which developed in the Tibet and in Mongolia and for which the salute can be reached by the esoteric study.

The rest of the article will come...

Dalai Lama at Lausanne (Switzerland)

The international buddhist community Rigdzin have the huge pleasure to welcome His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama , who is one of the more important peace ambassador and the man who is able to harmonize the different religions in the world.

The manifestation:

On the 4th and 5th august, 2009, His Holiness the 14th Dalai will give:

• Lessons on the subject: « Understand our spirit and the causes of the happiness» based on the text of the huge buddhist mentor Tsongkhapa « The three principal aspects of holy way» ;


• An initiation of Bouddha on Medicine and a "ceremony of long life" (Tenshug) ;


• A public conference on the subject "World Peace and Inner Peace"

His Holiness will speak mainly in tibetan.

His lessons will be translated in French by Matthieu Ricard. Simultaneous traductionswill be available in english, german, spanish and italian. Two more conferences will be set at the evening, one by Sogyal Rinpoché and the other by Chokling Jigmé Palden Rinpoché, specialist of the buddhist tradition.

Reservations on http://www.dalailama-lausanne2009.ch/FR_Reservations.htm

Dalai Lama's conference

On the 7th June, 2009, The Dalai Lama will give a conference in France at the "Palais Omnisport of Paris Bercy" at 14 o'clock. The subject will be " Ethics and society".

Recognized on the international scale for of his pacific action and his Peace Nobel Price (1989), the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetans in exil, describes himself just "as a simple man".

His conferences attract every year, all over the world, a larger and larger public.

He exprimes with simple words the importance of hearth qualities, which are, as far as he is concerned, the elements of the bright days in the family, in the society but also at a individual scale.

This conference is organized by the "Maison du Tibet" with the participation of the associations Songtsen, Ganden Ling, and many voluntaries.

If you want to participate to this conference, you have to register on http://www.dalailama-paris2009.fr/reserver.php (on this link there is all the informations you need to participate!)

We hope you will be numerous!

Chinese calligraphy

Calligraphy is art to form writing signs from a language. It is characterised by wealth and the originality of the Chinese writing. So, it permits an enormous panel of expression.

The origin of calligraphy goes back up than 3 thousand years, with the Sang dynasty (or Yin).
In another times, Chinese’s characters were written on turtles’ carapaces or on beef.

To learn Chinese calligraphy, first the one who learns has to study the milked fundamentals and then to draw characters in regular style. After you have the common style and finally the style of the grass (these styles are levels of experience).

After the creation of the empire a new style of calligraphy appears: the official writing (lishu). It was simpler to read and very appreciated for the administration.
In the third century of our epoch, appears the “regular style” (kaishu), more elegant and it distinguishes by a softer line.
Then it was the turn of the “common style” (xingshu); this version permits to write more quickly.
Last but not least, the “style of the grass” is very ramified and it characterised by a writing linked, very free and hardly legible. It contains a lot of variants.

The most famous practice of calligraphy is the use of “four treasures”: the brush (in hairs of goat or hairs of wolf), paper (absorbing or not), ink and ink’s stone (used to put in a stick of ink with some water, after that you can obtain ink).

Asian cooking is so famous!

China:

The chinese cooking is one of more renowned to the world, and doubtless who contains most variations. It is rather necessary to speak about the Chinese kitchens because the regional aspect is fundamental. In spite of a remarkable continuity in the history of this cooking, the appearance of regional foods such as we know them today is a rather recent phenomenon, often dating the 19th century.

The Chinese cooking is connected at the same time to the society, to the philosophy and to the medicine.It distinguishes the cai, the cooked vegetables and by extension all which accompanies cereal, fan. Food yin, feminine, wet and soft thus refreshing is vegetables and fruits. Food yang, male, fried, spiced or on base of meat has a warming effect. A meal has to harmonize thus not only the tastes, but also find a balance between the cold and the warmth, the colors and the consistencies. The techniques of the Chinese cooking are so numerous. Another thing characterizing the traditional Chinese cooking is the absence of dairy products because of an intolerance in the lactose which exists in numerous Asian countries.

The Chinese share flats(dishes). These are often shared. The Chinese eat by means of baguettes, or the wooden Chinese spoons, more rarely porcelain. The table is characterized by its social aspect. It is round and sometimes surmounted by a rotating tray where are stored dishes. No knife is present at table. All the food is cut in cooking, with the exception of seafoods which are sometimes served non-peeled.

Thailande:

Bangkok, whose real name Krungtep or "City of Angels", in the opinion of many fans of good food, is probably the capital where, for all prices and all nationalities food, you eat the better the planet. A gastronomic universe Thailand, the ancient kingdom of Siam, is, in fact, one of the few Asian countries that has never undergone colonization. In doing so, the foreigner, the "farang", is considered sympathetically and this term has no pejorative connotation ... which is not the case for the "Kwaïlo or Gui Lo" (puppet type) in China. When we accept good heart abroad, we also accept their customs and cuisine. For centuries the Thai cuisine is a melting pot where they have mixed the influences of various cultures of South East Asia ... Siamese, Khmer, Mon, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese ... and Far East from China of Japan. Not to mention a very strong Buddhist traditions from India. Become a top tourist destinations in the world, always following the principle of reception, Thailand has also adapted to other crops in a few decades. Everyone will find his account and the largest international hotel to the tiniest Gargote there is a incredible variety of everything he can imagine in terms of food. You will eat better than Lausanne Switzerland, Australia to Sydney to Beijing Chinese, Japanese in Tokyo ... and sometimes French and Paris. It even eats Thai with multiple nuances. This dinner show is very appropriate for
Rose Garden of the Palace of Midwestern tourists to rural specialties sold, and run by street vendors around the markets Thonburi. A kitchen fragrant and volatile When it is not watered-down Thai food is exceptionally inventive, fragrant and volatile. It is characterized by the use of herbs, condiments and spices and especially pepper. The latter, described euphemistically as "pepper" (Prik) is no common measure with what is happening elsewhere. The Thai distinguish several varieties starting with the atomic bomb of the kind "Prik kee nu Lueng, tiny and green, followed by" Prik kee nu "which, despite its yellow-orange pastel not want him nothing. After Prik chee fah and Prik yuak which, although regarded as "mild" paralyze you in an instant. The famous Prik Thai equivalent of "bird-pepper" from Martinique, as feared by foreigners, the quality is the sweetest. What is considered inedible by an amateur of harissa is a spicy Thai barely. We understand that the majority of cooks and restaurateurs, especially in the West, have adapted some of their habits to non-regulars. On site, there are, for against, an amoeba ... no certainty, no parasite can resist this shock treatment.

Formerly, the Thais did not use either spoons, or forks, nor knives and ate with fingers the meal put on a mat. Nowadays, they use mainly spoons and forks and use baguettes only to eat noodles of accompaniment.
The Thais emphasize fruits in the dessert. They cut them according to a multitude of forms (animals, stars, etc.) and arrange them in a way in the middle of the guests to end the meals in beauty.

Japan:

Suchis!!!!!!!!!! It's very good for health and for taste.

The sushi is a Japanese dish. It is, outside Japan, one of the symbolic dishes of the Japanese cooking. It is difficult to date certainly the appearance of the first sushis. They would have appeared near the 5th century BC, date in which one the rice growing settled down in Japan. In this time, the fragments of fishes were salted then placed on the rice topreserve them. Little by little, this process of conservation was abandoned to make sushis a separate dish.
The sushi is a preparation of rice, and not fish. Its preparation is considered as an art.

Off-loaded in France some years ago, sushis were fast adopted by the aficionados of the healthy and well-balanced diet. Low in calories, rich in omega 3 and in minerals, this small Japanese enjoyment has everything to please. No reason for going without it! Healthy, dietary, little calorie, the sushi has any check. This Japanese traditional dish, consisted of rice and raw fish, is full of resources. If you are not convinced yet, , it is the moment to put you to it. To consume without moderation!

Boss's title sushi, conscript sushiya, is obtained only after 10 years from studies, and a lot of experience in the field of the cooking. It is then the privilege that to take charge of some rice.

India :

The variety of ingredients and spices makes the Indian cooking extremely flavourful. The western travelers are generally amazed to learn that the term "curry" is by way of English origin. Indeed, "curry" is an abnormality of the word " kari " meaning simply wipe. The Indian cooking uses approximately 25 spices, skilfully chosen as every dish and crushed in the mortar.

Some of these spices possess medicinal properties. Spices, quite as basic ingredient, vary from a region to the other one. Although all the Indians are not vegetarian, you will eat probably more dishes of vegetables. The Indian vegetables are cheap, vary, plentiful, fresh, and cooked well. Meat dishes are also for the honor.

The North of India is the cradle of the best rice, the basmati.

The cooking tandoori, according to the oven in the campfire in terra-cotta to tandoor, is very wide-spread in the North of India. Dishes are accompanied with spices soaked with some yoghourt, then cooked in the oven.

The cooking kashmiri is sweet and perfumed. Spices are utilsées in small quantity there and numerous dishes are on base of yoghourt or almonds. In snack particularly in the Cashmere: the rogan josh (curry of lamb) or the gushtaba (balls of spicy meats and sauce in the yoghourt).

The cooking mughlai finds its origin in the valleys of the Ganges and the Indus. Moghols, which appreciated hardly the Indian cooking, contributed to its development.

On the west coast, there is a wide selection of fishes and seafoods.

Number of tourists thinks that the Indian cooking does not possess desserts deserving of this name. It is not the case. The basic element is the white cheese or the curds.

Sweets are mainly desserts on base of milk, pastries and pancakes.

Besides the magnificent choice of candies and candy, there is an abundance of tropical fruits.

The tradional asian sports and westerners

During these last decades, the customs of the Westerners in leisure activities, in sport and in physical exercise considerably changed. There are only around thirty years, sit down on the ground crossed legs, to meditate or to make slow movements by concentrating were practices to which devoted certain hippies and the other nonconformist eccentrics. Nevertheless today, this kind of not very traditional activity spreads within the superior and middle classes of the society.

Indeed, we can speak about few traditional activity about the T'ai chi and about the Chi Chong. On the contrary, in Far East, in China for example, slow movements and meditation in a park are considered as activities more than traditional; whereas in these same cultures, to move quickly in the sound of the disco, to take its pulse or to run around the block to make of the exercise appear to be very strange customs.

However time(weather) change. The Westerners became more tolerant and more opened to the practices of the east, and also, the oriental welcome better today the western traditions. Both have their benefactions.

By practising the T'ai chi or the other internal martial arts, you can recover a health and to find a new physical balance which seems to miss us, to us, put under stress and pressing Westerners, and this for several reasons:

- Instead of going always faster and thrashing about to you always of more, you will find means to go more slowly. A welcome slowing down in the life of numerous Westerners overbooked.

- You can seize the main part of another culture and its traditions (which seem to please more and more) and widen so your own horizons.

- You can look to your body of advantage of strength and balance, there where most of the other types of physical activity would not allow it you as well.

- Your spirit will begin to understand(include) how to be with itself and with its own thoughts. Welcome the serenity!

Ramen

For 2 persons.

Preparation : 10 minutes, baking : 3 minutes

Râmens come from China and appeared in Japan at the beginning of the century. This dish is constituted of a bouillon, pasta of wheat and decoration. Râmens are very consumed in Japanand it exist a lot of recipes : miso, shôyu, shio (salt), with chicken or beef, with soya, mushrooms, etc…

Ingredients :

- two sachets of 100g to the taste of your choice (one square of noodles precooked and a basic sachet of soup more possibly a small sachet of oil by scoop)

- 100 g of smoked bacon cubes

- 140g of corn

- 90g of beans mungo (soya )

- four or five pieces of broccoli

- two hard eggs

Recipe :

Cook broccoli ten minutes in some scalding water (if they are deep-frozen) then drain.

In another saucepan, carry one litre of water with boiling then overturn bacon cubes there. After five min, you can take away a little fats which piles up on the surface of the water with a spoon.

Plunge the two squares of noodles into scalding water. With chopsticks, separate noodles. Wait three minutes by moving from time to time.

Withdraw the saucepan of fire, then add the soup. Move and keep setting everything. Add eggs, soya, broccoli and corn as you want with a little black pepper or spice.

Serve immediatly in a big bowl.

Breaded pork - Tonkatsu

For 4 persons
Preparation : 15 minutes, baking : 15 minutes

Ingredients :
- 4 pork scallops (450g)
- 35g of flour
- 2 eggs
- 2 cm3 of water
- 100g of panko (it is a variety of breadcrumb from Japanese cuisine and French cuisine)
- 300g of cabbage, in fine strips
- tonkatsu’s sauce

Recipe :
Flatten the pork delicately. Pass in the flour and take away the excedent.
Beat the eggs and blend its in water, after that, plunge the meat into beaten eggs and put it in breadcrums.
Let rest during ten minutes.
Soaked the cabbage five minutes in frozen water to make it crispy. Drain it.
Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and deep-fried the meat five or six minutes by turning it until the meat become gold on two sides.
Drain the pork with absorbing paper and cut two centimetres wide in diagonal in pieces. Serve with the cabbage trimmed with some tonkatsu’s sauce.

The Chinese New Year 2009

Chinese New Year 2009

Chinese New Year falls this time on 26 January 2009, ending February 13 2010. This is a year of Earth Buffalo because it is under the sign of the animal symbolism Buffalo (Beef) and the cosmological element Earth. It is also a leap year, because there are thirteen months.

The home Genius

A week before Chinese New Year, each family carries out the ceremonial farewell to the home Genius. Indeed, he must do a long journey to heaven to present his annual report to the Jade Emperor (heavenly god) on good and bad family’s actions during the past year. In order to obtain the favours of Genius, presented at his picture placard in the kitchen, a lot of food gifts. Chinese people are accustomed to offer especially sweets, preferably adhesive products, in order to keep close his mouth and not speak badly of them in front of the Jade Emperor.

Duration of the festivities

On the eve of Chinese New Year and 3 days after it are holidays. But in many industries, the festival lasts a week. The only establishments open during that period are theatres and restaurants. The country's economic life resumes on 7th day of New Year, but the festive atmosphere continues until the Feast of Lanterns, the 15th day of the first month of the year.

Rites and customs

In China, the New Year varies from one province to another. But some rituals and customs were adopted by all Chinese, whether they live in the North or the South in the country or abroad.
First, not New Year without firecrackers. These detonate virtually unabated throughout the day, and sporadically during a full week.
Chinese people love to stick around the house bodes messages written on red paper. Two parallel sentences written in perfect calligraphy adorn the 2 sides of the door. The jar of rice is often topped by a sign bearing the words "always full". Offerings at different Geniuses are part of the ritual of New Year's Day. It pays tribute to dead ancestors and celebrates the arrival of the new home Genius by placing his picture in the kitchen.

The Eve

Like Christmas Eve for Westerners, the Chinese New Year Eve is first and foremost a festival of family reunion where everyone will gather around a table. Dinner can not begin until all family members are present. Places are reserved for those who work away and can not return to the family feast.
The meal includes a large number of dishes and some dishes with symbolic meaning are necessarily contained in the menu. For example, the dish called "vegetables of the long year" is intelligence; "chicken" is intended to ensure the health of all members of the family, etc…

The lucky money

The Eve ends with the distribution of the "lucky money". Adults, especially parents and grandparents, give to children red envelopes containing the money which is supposed to bring luck throughout the New Year.

The dragon dance

Unlike Westerners, Chinese people considere the dragon as an animal representing the nobility, bravery and luck. After more than a thousand years of existence, the dragon dance retains its popularity and his power of fascination. It can run day or night. The night show is still a beauty. The used dragon is adorned by a wide variety of colours. It generally includes 9 to 12 sections, each up to one to three meters in length. Drums and gongs punctuate the dance of the mythical beast so respected by Chinese.

Taekwondo

The taekwondo is a martial art of Korean origin, it name can be translated by « The way of the foot and the fist ». Taekwondo officially born April 11th, 1955, after a development and unification of the different Korean martial schools of martial arts. It is therefore the fruit of a long martial tradition and of the job of a man : the general Choi Hong-hi. Enter 1988 to 1994, it became an official Olympic sports for the Games of Sydney in 2000, and not only a simple discipline.
Taekwondo can be played from the age of 5 years. He allows to acquire a good articular suppleness. It solicits the qualities of concentration, attention and application like a lot of martial arts. Besides, the education of Taekwondo for the children begin with the realization and the approval of the emotions. Fighters use to have protections items for head, hands and feet.

Competitions are organized by the ITF (International Taekwon-Do Federation) and regroup four sub-disciplines :
Free fight :
It is a light-contact fight, it means that blows are controlled, and are not aimed at putting the adversary out of battle. So fighters can use striking performed with fists, sharp side or back of the hands, top of the feet, heel, etc... Full contact exist in competition, but only at the level of black belt (the best level).
Tuls or formes :
It is the technical side of taekwondo's competitions. The aim is to mime a fight as though they are confronted to one or several adversaries. They have a key importance to go up in rank.
The breakage :
Breakage is a test of potency. The contestant who breaks most boardwalk carries off competition.
Specials techniques :
As in breakage, every contestant has five techniques to be performed. It is not however a question of breaking boardwalk in potency, but of attaining with various techniques a target put as high as possible.