May you live in interesting times
May you live in interesting times , also known as the Chinese curse , is a saying whose origin is not clearly proven, but is often assigned to the Chinese language . The first written record was made in 1936 by the former British ambassador to China , Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen , in his memoir . The phrase became widely known when Robert F. Kennedy said in his Day of Affirmation speech :
"There is a Chinese curse which says, 'May he live in interesting times.' Like it or not, we live in interesting times ... "
"There is a Chinese curse that goes: 'May he live in interesting times!' Whether we want it or not - we live in interesting times ... "
Translation and interpretation
The basic idea of the curse coincides with the formulation of the philosopher Hegel :
“World history is not the basis of happiness. The periods of happiness are empty sheets in it. "
There are at least two options for curses in the Chinese language:
宁 为 太平 狗 ， 不做 乱世 人。 , Níng wéi tàipíng gǒu ， bù zuò luàn shì rén. - "Better a dog in times of peace than a person in times of turmoil"
生不逢时。 , Shēng bù féng shí. - "Be born at an inopportune time."
The latter phrase comes from the divinatory text Jiaoshi Yilin from the Western Han Dynasty and is used here in connection with negative omina .
Example: 生不逢時 ， 困 且 多 憂。 無 有 冬夏 ， 心 常 悲愁。 , Shēng bù féng shí, kūn qiě duō yōu. Wú yǒu dōng xià, xīn cháng bēi chóu. - “If you are born at an inopportune time, you have grief and many worries. If there is no winter or summer, the heart is regularly sad and full of worry. "
Uses
- Robert Kennedy's address to the National Union of South African Students in Cape Town in 1966 on issues relating to the American civil rights movement closes with a passage containing the curse.
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Really Magical is called Interesting Times .
- The blog of the American journalist George Packer in the magazine The New Yorker titled Interesting times.
- The character of Ensign Harry Kim in the series Star Trek: Voyager uses the phrase in the episode The Cloud (1st season, 6th episode).
- In the TV series White Collar , the curse is discussed in episode 14 by the protagonists Caffrey and Mozzie.
- In the growing cycle of Iain Banks a subgroup is particularly circumstances "Interesting Times Group" named.
- May you live in interesting times is the motto of the Biennale di Venezia in 2019 .
- In The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons , the consul cited the curse.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen: Diplomat in Peace and War (1949), J. Murray
- ↑ May you live in interesting times! , East Asia Institute of the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences - website. Retrieved October 16, 2013.
- ↑ What is meant here are "clear conditions" in the sense of the underlying Chinese natural philosophy, i.e. a clear yin element (winter) and a clear yang element (summer)
- ↑ http://ctext.org/jiaoshi-yilin/yi-zhi