FW: May you live in interesting times

[Benjamin Barrett]

>From the Chinese (Kenyon) list.

Benjamin Barrett
gogaku at ix.netcom.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-chinese at kenyon.edu [mailto:owner-chinese at kenyon.edu]On
Behalf Of Ho, Yong
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 06:56
To: chinese at kenyon.edu
Subject: May you live in interesting times


Dear Colleagues:

I received a request from the Lehrer/McNeil Newshour to verify the Chinese
version of the proverb translated into English as "may you live in
interesting times". McNeil was told that this was an ancient Chinese curse.
I couldn't think of any Chinese proverb that says anything to that effect.
So I consulted Torrey Whitman, our President who is an expert on classical
Chinese and especially on proverbs and sayings. Interestingly he told me
that he once conducted an extensive research on this saying. He consulted
many other experts and scholars and none of them could tell him the original
Chinese proverb. So his (as well as many others') conclusion is that this
alleged Chinese proverb doesn't exist and it is purely made up. If you think
otherwise, I would appreciate your insight. I would also be interested to
know when and where this expression came into use in English.

Thank you.

Yong Ho