Well unicode and python is a bit messy. But PyArg_ParseTuple with `s` as argument will convert Strings and Unicode Strings to a c string pointer. So we can use PyArg_ParseTuple and do not loose any functionalities... Check the api: [python2.7](http://docs.python.org/2.7/c-api/arg.html) and [python3](http://docs.python.org/2.7/c-api/arg.html)