“May You Live in Interesting Times” | Hacker News Reader

“May You Live in Interesting Times”

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105 pointsAnon8487 comments

There's a somewhat closer Chinese saying from Mencius, although it is not at all a curse and is advocating non-ironically for an "interesting" life.

生于忧患，而死于安乐也

In troubles and worry is there life. In peace and satisfaction is there death.

Yes by that sentence alone there's some ambiguity; it could be by living in troubles and worry [you shall] die in peace and satisfaction, but the preceding sentence in the work makes me lean away from that interpretation: 出则无敌国外患者，国恒亡 (if from without there are no opposing nations to worry about, then a country inevitably dies).

EDIT:

The whole preceding passage from the Mencius is an interesting paean to struggle.

故天将降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为，所以动心忍性，曾益其所不能。

人恒过，然后能改。困于心，衡于虑，而后作；征于色，发于声，而后喻。

A rough translation:

Thus when Heaven is about to place such an important mission on the shoulders of these people, it first must hardship their hearts, tire their sinews and bones, famish their skin and flesh, impoverish their bodies, and foil their actions. Through this Heaven can move their hearts and impart patience upon their personalities, thereby improving their weaknesses.

Humans shall always make mistakes, but afterwards they can improve. They shall be hindered in their hearts and confounded in their thoughts. Afterwards shall they spring to action. They shall wear this pain on their face and express it with their speech. Afterwards shall they understand [or perhaps be understood].

This reminds me slightly of the passage in Cicero of which the "lorem ipsum" text is a mangled version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum#Source_text

(but I'm not sure that the philosophical position advocated is that similar)

Here's an unexpected gem, from John Francis Davis: “The Chinese: A General Description of the Empire of China and Its Inhabitants” (1836):

The Chinese have lived so much in peace, that they have acquired by habit and education a more than common horror of political disorder. “Better be a dog in peace than a man in anarchy,” is a common maxim. “It is a general rule,” they say, “that the worst of men are fondest of change and commotion, hoping that they may thereby benefit themselves; but by adherence to a steady, quiet system, affairs proceed without confusion, and bad men have nothing to gain.”

Kind of says something about our beloved "disruption."

EDIT: Awww, boo hoo!

>“It is a general rule,” they say, “that the worst of men are fondest of change and commotion, hoping that they may thereby benefit themselves; but by adherence to a steady, quiet system, affairs proceed without confusion, and bad men have nothing to gain.”

Chaos is a ladder.

The Shock Doctine by Naomi Klein sort of talks about that.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste"

People overstate the stagnation of the Qing dynasty.

That said, the cultural inertia and resistance to adapt to changing global patterns made China's 150 years after 1836, shall we say, full of change and commotion. To paraphrase Pericles, just because you do not take an interest in disruption doesn't mean disruption won't take an interest in you.

And Gandhi did not say "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Instead, he apparently said:

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” – Mahatma Gandhi

But did he say it in English? I don't know.

Gandhi did speak English is my contribution to this thread.

He was even admitted to practice law in the United Kingdom (and did successfully practice for two decades in South Africa while it was part of the British Empire).

He did and he wrote some nice things in it for western consumption and he also wrote a lot in Gujarati, some of it less nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrocosm_and_microcosm

So sounds like "Be the change you want to see in the world." is a nice summary of the whole phrase, right? :-)

It's a funny tendency that these fake quotes always manage to capture the essence of what they are misquoting.

It's just compression, since nobody wants to bother repeating the long version frequently.

The long version is a lot harder to put on a coffee mug.

Pretty much.

May You Live in Interesting Times is the name of the 2019 edition of La Biennale Arte in Venice [0]:

‘The 58th International Art Exhibition, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, takes place from 11th May to 24th November 2019. The title is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; "interesting times", exactly as the ones we live in today.’

Not withstanding the discussion what the origin of this years phrase is, I can highly recommend La Biennale Arte di Venice as a bi-yearly reflection on the zeitgeist. Besides the main exhibition, the 78 participating countries are represented with an exhibition by their finest artists, eg in 2011 the US pavilion featured a military tank turned upside down with a treadmill on top [1]

Venice can be reached from Paris by sleeper train [2] and from many other european destinations by train & air.

[0] https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019

[1] https://youtu.be/-0Dmptetj1s

[2] https://www.seat61.com/thello-train-from-paris-to-italy.htm

So, it's kind of like the fortune cookie thing, where people actually living in China have no clue what Americans are talking about?

Kind of curious what the counterpart to this would be. What things are typically ascribed to Americans, that Americans are often unaware of?

American Sauce in the Netherlands comes to mind.

Probably nearly everything portrayed in American movies and TV shows. Um, no, there is not choreographed singing and dancing in the cafeteria of American high schools.

Nope the terrible door knobs instead of handles are evreywhere. I was so surprised when I moved to the USA and learned that those aren’t just a comedy trope. People actually in fact use them.

That’s what confirmed for me that everything physically possible that I see in American TV is in fact true.

I've similarly heard of people shocked to find that red Solo cups[1] are in fact ubiquitous at American college parties, and not just a staple in movies/TV.

[1] https://www.staples-3p.com/s7/is/image/Staples/sp41688274_sc...

I have literally never seen a disposable red cup in person until I came to the US. They’re surprisingly sturdy and well made.

I'm a Brit who moved to the States about three years ago. As well as this surprise, I was also shocked to discover that Jaywalking is actually considered a (minor) crime, and not just something that Americans made up to make fun of tourists (similar to Australian Drop-bears).

If the factoid I'm remembering is accurate, the "crime" of jaywalking was one of those things automobile manufacturers lobbied for in order to shift the blame for accidents from automobile/drivers to the pedestrians actually getting injured. Of course, before the automobile, streets were for pedestrians just as much as they were for any other means of transportation, and everyone moved slowly enough to get out of each others' way.

In fifty-plus years of walking around in the cities and suburbs of the US, I have never seen anyone get a citation for jaywalking, though I know it happens now and then.

My impression is that the police do it now and then to hassle persons they otherwise disapprove of or dislike. The writer Gary Wills once wrote of some DC police giving him a jaywalking ticket, apparently because he thought that a look at their car before he crossed implied disrespect. But I pretty routinely jaywalk in the presence of the police without attracting their notice. I'm pretty innocuous in appearance, but I see others do this too.

Do you mean to tell me that in India the passengers on a train don't routinely perform dance numbers on the roof?

Oh, interesting! As an American, I had to google that one.

For those who are curious it's basically mayonnaise, but not quite. There is no direct equivalent in US cuisine to my knowledge.

Chipotle sauce, aoili, remoulade...

Not exactly the same thing. It's like mayo but thinner and sweeter, and has little green fleks in it.

Is it riffing off ranch dressing? I've heard that ranch is associated with the US, outside of the US.

Edit: looks like "american sauce" can refer to a multitude of things. Typically it seems to either be some kind of ranch or thousand island.[1] Both of which are separate from "Sauce Americaine", from French cuisine.[2]

2nd edit: If the OP is talking specifically about Heinz brand "American Sauce", apparently the closest match in American cuisine is either thousand island or big mac sauce/"secret sauce" used on burgers (which is based on thousand island). It is pretty American, come to think of it.

[1] https://www.thedailymeal.com/news/travel/which-mayonnaise-he...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauce_Am%C3%A9ricaine

https://www.hollandsupermarket.eu/remia-fritessaus-american-...

http://www.typicaldutchstuff.com/ahamericanfritessaus-pi-364...

https://cf.geekdo-images.com/camo/271763ae14b82c0f612b6b9f61...

This is what I'm referring to.

Digging a little deeper it appears like McDonalds may have actually invented the sauce to appeal to the Dutch market, where fritessaus is popular (instead of tomato ketchup). Because McDonalds is American, their take on fritessaus grew into it's own thing called "American Fritessaus," or simply "American Saus."

Interestingly, Fry Sauce[0] is near ubiquitous in Utah (and no other US state as far as I know). You can find it on offer just about anywhere in Utah that sells fries.

0. https://www.eater.com/2016/8/6/12054512/fry-sauce-ketchup-ma...

It exists in California too at least.

Exists yes, but is it ubiquitous? Do you find it everywhere you find fries?

the "American Favorite" Toast Hawaii (an open faced ham and pineapple sandwich) in Germany.

Lol reminds me of Hawaiian pizza (pizza topped with pineapples and thinly sliced ham). Hawaiian pizza is actually a Canadian dish, though it's now popular in most of the US, including Hawaii.

When I was a kid, I was terribly confused about how a country could fly to the moon when it was depicted as quite rural in "The Waltons".

In Denmark when they want to make fun of American self-importance, they call it "guds eget land" or "God's own country". I've never heard the expression in English.

I have heard North Carolina described as "God's country". I think this is a reference to its natural beauty, as well as being in the Bible Belt.

That phrase is usually used to refer to Yorkshire, a large county in northeastern England.

On the west coast of the US people sometimes jokingly refer to Oregon as "God's Country," because it has lots of churches.

As someone who grew up in Oregon, I'm surprised, as when you rank states by religiosity, it's usually way down near the bottom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

I'd expect such quips about Utah or the South.

This is a popular country song in the radio right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEWGyyLiqY4

Though the difference in phrasing (“god’s own country versus god’s country”) is meaningful.

I've heard both “God’s Country” and, though somewhat less frequently, “God’s Own Country” used to refer to parts of America, particularly the rural Midwest and/or Bible Belt.

That's literally Kerala's tag line (a state in India)

I've heard it used referring to New Zealand (by NZers, although often now abbreviated to just "Godzone"). The equivalent term we'd use to make fun of the US is "land of the free".

I used it when the police there let me off a speeding ticket in the mail - I had no idea it was a common thing

I'm from the American south, we refer to any rural area where people are more self-reliant and the land is not developed as "God's country." It doesn't have much to do with how religious the area is or how many churches are there.

The expression "God's country" is not that uncommon, and maybe used ironically or just without any particular expression of religiosity. Usually I've heard it used to refer to an area pleasant to live in or visit.

There was once a German expression for felicity, "Living like God in France."

I was a bit surprised to see Americano as a coffee choice. Turns out it’s basically the plain coffee Americans make in regular coffee makers every morning.

Well I think Americano is an effort to dilute Espresso in with hot water in order to make it more like the regular plain coffee that Americans are used to.

Right. It’s not coffe from a coffee maker (mr coffee) but rather a diluted espresso shot to mimic the strength of coffee maker coffee.

If it's this[1] you're referring to, it's called "thousand island dressing" in the US, except at McDonalds where it's called "Special Sauce." Also, sandwhiches that traditionally call for Russian dressing, such as a Reuben now typically use it as well (it's more sweet and less spicy than Russian dressing).

1: https://imgur.com/Fh8pSjk

Not quite, I'm referring to american fritessaus, which is more like mayonaise, and distinct from thousand island dressing (which is popular in the US, In-N-Out calls it "spread").

https://www.hollandsupermarket.eu/remia-fritessaus-american-...

The American Fritessaus is similar to Big Mac sauce because they're both milder takes on Louisiana style remoulade. Which was a spicier version of the traditional topping for fried potatoes in France so it's like it went in a circle.

Most people here in Australia have never heard of the Australian Shepherd breed of dogs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Shepherd

Filet Americain or "American Filet" is a popular dish in the Netherlands and Belgium that I'm pretty sure not many in the USA have heard of.

Filet Americain is based on steak tartare. And American sauce is based on Thousand-Island dressing. They are adapted to local taste and customs, but they would be somewhat familiar to Americans.

Germany has a pastry called “Amerikaner “. At least in the Stuttgart area.

These exist in the US, but they're called black and white cookies. According to Wikipedia they may have been created in New York by Bavarian immigrants. But it's unclear if the confection's origin is German or American.

> These exist in the US, but they're called black and white cookies.

Most images of Amerikaner, like that on Wikipedia [1], are potentially misleading because they only show the upper side, so it looks like a cookie with frosting. But in actuality, the dough is not flat and evenly distributed like in a cookie, but gets much thicker in the center, see e.g. [2]. Not like a cookie at all.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikaner_(Geb%C3%A4ck)#/medi...

[2] http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J6qYwRqgE6M/T76gn5d3XMI/AAAAAAAAA6...

"Ich bin ein Amerikaner."

And when Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner", he was certainly not referring to the pastry (a jam-filled doughnut, though spheroidal instead of toroidal) known in most of Germany as "Berliner" but known in Berlin as "Pfannkuchen", which in the rest of Germany just refers to a pancake.

An "Americana" pizza in Finland is ham, pineapple and blue cheese: https://www.kotipizza.fi/dist/pdf/KP_menu_A4_laaja_EN.pdf

I feel like dressing up like an Indian and throwing whatever Finland's primary export is into a harbor.

British Petroleum is already throwing it in the harbor for you.

In Japan, corndogs are called "American dogs"

There's a particular blend of coffee here in Japan called the American, which seems to be the default thing several of my friends get when ordering coffee. Not being a coffee person, I'm not sure how it's different. All cofee tastes revoltingly bitter to me.

Is it the same as an Americano? That term comes from Italians' observations of how WWII-era U.S. soldiers took their coffee: they watered down the strong Italian espresso to approximate the weaker coffee they were used to sipping over long periods back home.

Americano [1], sometimes called American, is a style of coffee all over the world, though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffè_Americano

Lol, I (an American) also first heard of Americano in Japan, but I wasn’t confused about it being a Japanese word.

Different thing. "American" coffee in Japan refers to light-roast drip coffee.

Yes, they have separate Japanese Wikipedia articles:

"American Coffee": https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3...

Caffè Americano: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3...

The "American Coffee" article introduction paragraph even clarifies that this is a completely separate thing from Caffè Americano.

I read a long time ago that this quote was originally (and surprisingly) coined by the science fiction writer Eric Frank Russell. It certainly fits his humorous style, and the type of stories he used to write.

Unfortunately, I can't remember the source of this claim. However, this article does quote Arthur C Clarke's reference to the 'curse': As the old Chinese curse has it: “May you live in interesting times,” and the twentieth century is probably the most “interesting” period mankind has ever known.

Clarke and Russell were (as far as I recall) friends at university in the 1930s, which certainly fits the time period attributed to the quote.

So, I go with Eric Frank Russell, a writer who definitely had the finesse to create something so enigmatic and seemingly-authentic.

During the 2008 subprime mortgage crash, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon wrote an email to the world-wide staff about the acquisition of Bear, I remember he put "May you live in interesting times" in the email but I couldn't find any relevant explanation of the meaning of the quote. I asked a few Chinese/Vietnamese friends and they didn't seem to know the origin of it, either.

There's also a book based on this quote by the legendary Terry Pratchett:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_Times

Quote Investigator does indispensable work.

I don't understand why Chinese historians don't seem to have been engaged here? I get finding the American reference source, but then the research just seems to leave it at that.

Is this the scope of the site - just investigating local sources for quotes?

I think the site editor is a native English speaker, and I don't think the site has a team of speakers of other languages to help investigate non-English quote origins.

The Clinton quote, "Are you having an Interesting Time yet?" also brings in Bill Griffiths's Zippy the Pinhead catchphrase, "Are we having fun yet?".

100% a quote by Harry Kim in Voyager

J.L. Borges: "Le tocaron, como a todos los hombres, malos tiempos en que vivir."

Just goes to show that the self-proclaimed "experts" on some foreign country are usually charlatans and peddlers of disinformation. Take that into account the next time you see anything on the news by some "investigative journalist" or "$country expert".

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