FW: May you live in interesting times

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 11 May 2000, Benjamin Barrett wrote:

> -----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
>
> 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.

I cannot speak to the authenticity of this as a Chinese proverb.  Its use
in English is usually traced to a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in
Cape Town, South Africa on 7 June 1966.  However, in an ADS-L exclusive, I
will now give for the first time an earlier example:

"Before I left England for China," a British ambassador once wrote, "A
friend told me that there exists a Chinese curse -- 'May you live in
interesting times.'"
        Alvin D. Coox, Year of the Tiger (1964)


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2