May you live in interesting times

[Bob Haas]

I'm familiar with this (now) ersatz quote from a film or a book, but I
cannot place it.  Can anybody help out?

> From: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 11:23:17 -0700
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: FW: May you live in interesting times
>
> 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