View source for May you live in interesting times

{{Short description|Apocryphal purported Chinese curse}}
{{Redirect|Chinese curse|Chinese-language swearing|Mandarin Chinese profanity}}
"'''May you live in interesting times'''" is an [[English proverbs|English expression]] that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional [[Chinese culture|Chinese]] [[curse]]. The expression is [[Irony|ironic]]: "interesting" times are usually times of trouble.
Despite being so common in English as to be known as the "'''Chinese curse'''", the saying is [[Apocryphal#Metaphorical usage|apocryphal]], and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced. The most likely connection to Chinese culture may be deduced from analysis of the late-19th-century speeches of [[Joseph Chamberlain]], probably erroneously transmitted and revised through his son [[Austen Chamberlain]].<ref name="O'Toole-2015">{{cite web|last1=O'Toole|first1=Garson|title=May You Live in Interesting Times|url=http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/|website=Quote Investigator: Exploring the Origins of Quotations|access-date=27 May 2016}}</ref>
==Origins==
Despite the phrase being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no known equivalent expression in Chinese.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Van Norden |first=Bryan William |author-link=Bryan W. Van Norden |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TtK5750bm30C |title=Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy |publisher=[[Hackett Publishing Company]] |others=[p. 257]: Shapiro, 2006, p. 669 |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-60384-605-9 |location=[[Indianapolis]]; [[Cambridge]] |page=53 |language=en-US |chapter=II. Criticisms and Confucianism |lccn=2010042112 |oclc=1413500230 |quote='''''Myth:''' “A traditional Chinese curse is ‘May you live in interesting times.’”'' / '''''Fact:''' No Chinese source has ever been found for this quaint quotation.''}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300107982 |title=The Yale Book of Quotations |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |others=''American Society of International Law Proceedings'' vol. 33 (1939) |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-300-10798-2 |editor-last=Shapiro |editor-first=Fred Richard |editor-link=Fred R. Shapiro |location=[[New Haven, Connecticut]]; [[London]] |language=en-US |chapter=Sayings |lccn=2006012317 |oclc=184842706 |quote=39{{nbsp}}[''“Old Chi{{shy}}nese curse”:''] May you live in in{{shy}}ter{{shy}}est{{shy}}ing times. {{small|No authentic Chinese saying to this effect has ever been found.}}}}</ref> The nearest related [[Chinese proverbs|Chinese expression]] translates as "Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos." ({{lang|zh-hant|[[:wikt:en:寧為太平犬，不做亂世人|寧為太平犬，不做亂世人]]}})<ref>{{Cite news |last=O'Conner |first=Patricia |author-link=Patricia T. O'Conner |last2=Kellerman |first2=Stewart |author-link2=Stewart Kellerman |date=5 July 2012 |title=May you live in interesting times |url=https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/07/interesting-times.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928170319/https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/07/interesting-times.html |archive-date=28 September 2018 |access-date=9 April 2013 |work=The Grammarphobia Blog}}</ref> The expression originates from Volume 3 of the 1627 short story collection by [[Feng Menglong]], ''[[Stories to Awaken the World]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author=Feng |first=Menglong |author-link=Feng Menglong |url=https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%86%92%E4%B8%96%E6%81%86%E8%A8%80/%E7%AC%AC03%E5%8D%B7 |title=Xǐng Shì Héng Yán |year=1627 |volume=3 |language=zh-hant |script-title=zh:醒世恆言 |trans-title=Stories to Awaken the World |via=[[:wikidata:Q19822573|Chinese Wikisource]]}}</ref>
Evidence that the phrase was in use as early as 1936 is provided in a memoir written by [[Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen]], the British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937, and published in 1949. He mentions that before he left England for China in 1936, a friend told him of a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."<ref>{{cite book |last=Knatchbull-Hugessen |first=Hughe |title=Diplomat in Peace and War |publisher=John Murray |year=1949 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjMvAAAAIAAJ&q=interesting+times |page=ix }}</ref>
The phrase is again described as a "Chinese curse" in an article published in ''Child Study: A Journal of Parent Education'' in 1943.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Child Study: A Journal of Parent Education |author1=Child Study Association |publisher=[[Cornell University]] |year=1943 |language=en-US |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IipEAAAAYAAJ |volume=21 |page=52}}</ref>
[[Frederic René Coudert Jr.]] also recounts having heard the phrase at the time:
<blockquote>Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honoured friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark "that we were living in an interesting age". Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: "Many years ago I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, 'May you live in an interesting age.{{'"}} "Surely", he said, "no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time." That was three years ago.<ref>{{cite book |first=Frederic R. |last=Coudert |title=Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1940 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2mIKAAAAIAAJ&q=interesting |page=269 }}</ref></blockquote>
=="Chamberlain curse" theory==
Research by philologist Garson O'Toole shows a probable origin in the mind of Austen Chamberlain's father [[Joseph Chamberlain]] dating around the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, O'Toole cites the following statement Joseph made during a speech in 1898:
<blockquote>I think that you will all agree that ''we are living in most interesting times.'' (Hear, hear.) I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, ''new objects for anxiety.'' (Hear, hear.) [emphasis added]<ref name="O'Toole-2015" /></blockquote>
Over time, the Chamberlain family may have come to believe that the elder Chamberlain had not used his own phrase, but had repeated a phrase from Chinese.
==Trilogy==
The curse is sometimes presented as the first in a trilogy. [[Terry Pratchett]] is quoted as saying
<blockquote>The phrase "may you live in interesting times" is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and finish with "may the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no idea about its authenticity.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pratchett |first1=Terry |date=2008 |title=Book World Live: 'Discworld' Author Terry Pratchett |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/09/25/DI2008092502168.html |access-date=29 June 2024 |publisher=Washington Post}}</ref></blockquote>
==See also==
*[[Chinese word for "crisis"]]
*''[[Interesting Times]]'', a [[Terry Pratchett]] novel
* This phrase was used as a title for the 2019 edition of the [[Venice Biennale]] exhibition<ref>{{cite web | url=https://inferno-magazine.com/2019/05/09/biennale-de-venise-en-images-may-you-live-in-interesting-times/ | title=Biennale de Venise : En Images, « May You Live in Interesting Times | date=9 May 2019 }}</ref>
* ''[[Can't Help Myself (Sun Yuan and Peng Yu)|Can't Help Myself]]''
==References==
{{Reflist|1=30em}}
==External links==
* {{cite web |url=http://hawk.fab2.albany.edu/sidebar/sidebar.htm |title=Get a(n interesting) life! |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040404010918/http://hawk.fab2.albany.edu/sidebar/sidebar.htm |archive-date=2004-04-04 |author=Stephen E. DeLong |date=May 5, 1998|access-date=2008-08-03}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.noblenet.org/reference/inter.htm |title= Origin of Phrase: May You Live In Interesting Times |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016060103/http://www.noblenet.org/reference/inter.htm |archive-date=2007-10-16 |access-date=2008-08-03}}
[[Category:Chinese folklore]]
[[Category:English words and phrases]]
[[Category:Fakelore]]