More Than A Martial Artist by Frank Y Pak Agostinelli
Dragon Seeks Path
Li Jun-fan better known as Bruce Lee is arguably the most recognizable face to grace anything media-oriented. He was born in San Francisco November 27, 1940. His father Li Hoi Cheun, was a famous Chinese Opera singer and his mother Grace, was Eurasian (half-Chinese, half-German). An avid reader of Western, Eastern, ancient and modern philosophy, he majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. His own personal philosophies of life were formed at this time but his focus was on teaching Wing Chun gung fu. Although he starred in many movies as a child he is better known for his movies, The Big Boss, Fists Of Fury, The Way Of The Dragon, Game Of Death and his only Hollywood produced movie Enter The Dragon. He passed away July 20, 1973 before Game Of Death could ever be completed. As a kid I watched his movies and wanted to be Bruce. I even had his trademark flicking his thumb across his nose down to science. He had a magnetic personality that flowed through his expressions. Bruce was a cool cat baby! He made it cool to be Asian. Even part Asian.
JKD Philosophy
It was a fight between him and a gung fu master that precipitated Bruce’s rethinking of tradition. First it started with conditioning methods, then studying and incorporating Western boxing and the footwork of fencing. Thus the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, the way of the intercepting fist was born. The focal point of JKD was simple, have a foundation (his being Wing Chun) and build by “taking what is useful and discarding the rest.” To duplicate Bruce Lee the marital artist is impossible. To duplicate Bruce Lee the philosopher, not so impossible. What many are unaware of is JKD is applicable to every day life. Bruce encouraged flexibility in thought and to be a critical thinker. He recognized the human being is bound by tradition and popular opinion. The individual never grows because he/she accepts and follows the crowd. By using the Socratic method, he encouraged the individual to break away from restrictions and learn to honestly express one’s self. By questioning what is normal, the person expands their boundaries to have no boundaries. To be the best person one can be. He never considered himself a teacher. He felt he was more of a guide. The introspection was up to how far the individual wanted to go.
Bruce Li is a martial artist of life. Complete and whole. He trained his body as well as his mind to be the best human being possible. It has been 33 years since he has graced us with his presence but he still lives on in the hearts of many.
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Vladimir Lenin by Frank Y Pak Agostinelli
Vladimir Lenin is know to all as the Father of Communism. He took Marxism and manipulated it to fit the archaic agricultural, absolutist system in Russia. It wasn't known until recent years that Lenin was part Asian, Mongol in fact. The following are excerpts from a paper completed for honors Western Civilization II. If you would like to read the paper in its entirety, visit my personal webpage.
Vladimir Lenin's ethnicity has always been an undertone throughout history. This seems the case with most who are in the political spotlight who show hints of another nationality. It is important to discuss Lenin's background ethnically and socially. There has been many questions and debate what ethnic background Lenin was. Lenin was always reticent about the origins and the background of his family. He always felt what was personal should remain private. There has been great reluctance to discuss the Ulyanov family tree, no doubt because it was felt that the leader of the Russian revolution must be Russian. In addition the fact his ethnic background had been carefully covered up to make sure he was seen to have been, if not of 'proletarian,' at least of 'poor peasant' origin. He was admired by Russians and was the face of Russia. Ethnically speaking, what is the face of Russia? Empirically, Russians are a gumbo of many people who have trekked through the vastness of this great land and it is something that truly can be applied to the world at large. Lenin's background reflected the face of the entire empire. Lenin's antecedents were Russian, Kalmyk (Mongol), Jewish, German and Swedish, and possibly others, symbolizing Russian history, as it were: a Slavic beginning, Asiatic expansion, a Jewish accretion to the national intellect, and German or Western European culture. When dealing with social status, Lenin never attempted to hide the fact landowners were part of his background even though many Soviet biographers hid this fact. A brief look into the Ulyanov lineage will show Vladimir's ethnic background as well as the social standing of the lineage.
There is a 'minor' discrepancy when discussing Ilya‘s side of the family tree. Many historians insist it was Lenin’s grandfather who was the serf but this holds no truth. Lenin’s grandfather, Nikolai Vasilievich was a Russian town-dweller of Astrakhan who earned his living as a tailor. He was the son of a serf, but at an early age had been released to work away from the village, and had never returned home becoming a town dweller as distinct from a peasant, merchant or nobleman by social status. It was Lenin’s great grandfather, Vasili Nikitich Ulyanov who had been a serf . He remained single until he turned fifty, and it was only then, having saved up some money, that he married. His bride was almost twenty years his junior, was Anna Alexeena Smirnova, a baptised Kalmyk. The couple had four children, Ilya, Lenin's father, being the youngest. Vasili was already past sixty and Anna was forty-three when Ilya was born.
Lenin's mother, Maria (Mariya) Blank Alexandrova, was the fourth daughter of Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, a doctor and a baptized Jew from Zhitomir. He had taken as his patronymic the name of his godfather at his baptism, Dmitri Baranov, dropped his original patronymic of Moishevich, and adopted the Christian name of Alexander in place of his original name, Srul, the Yiddish form of Israel. Alexander Blank married Anna Johannovna Groschopf, the daughter of a prosperous German father and Swedish mother. In 1847, Alexander attained the civil service rank of State Counsellor, he retired and registered himself as a member of the nobility in Kazan, a major city on the Volga and the centre of Tatar culture in the region. There he bought the estate of Kokushkino. Here, Anna raised five daughters: Anna, Lyubov, Sofia, Maria (Lenin's mother), and Yekaterina. The manner in which both Ilya and Maria met gives credence to the saying “everything happens for a reason.” The year after his wife died, Alexander Blank took up the post of inspector of a medical board in Perm and moved there with his family. For a short time he acted as the doctor for the Perm high school, where he befriended its Latin teacher Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov, who married his eldest daughter Anna. Veretennikov became inspector at Perm Nobles’ Institue. It was on a visit to her married sister’s home in Perm that Maria Blank met the mathematics teacher at the Institute, Ilya Ulyanov, her future husband.
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