Question about - 'May you live in a time of change'

[Mike]

There is, apparently, a Chinese curse: -

'May you live in a time of change'

Is this a recognised Chinese curse?

Can someone, please, print the curse in Chinese

What did it mean at the time?

What does it mean now?

Cheers!

Mike

[skylee]

It is not that apparent to me ...

[Mike]

It is not that apparent to me ...

It gets quoted in English langauge textbooks on change management. Quite a few www references. I'm interested to learn the Chinese - if it exists as a recognised saying - and the original meaning.

[FSO]

Sounds like this one to me: http://www.noblenet.org/reference/inter.htm

[zhwj]

There's more information here

[Mike]

Thanks guys. 'May you live in changing times" / "May you live in interesting times" look similar to me. Ha ha, I was hoping it proved to be fake. If it isn't please, someone, let me know and I will quote it ad nauseum. I'm reading about business change management at the moment, and that means looking at American (usually) business guru stuff. Ahhhhhhhhh...... Can you believe it the: "May you live in changing times" thing is quoted in two papers - one of which is English - English, English - I mean by a bloke in London ;-)

On a slightly different tack - quoting wikipedia: 'In his paper, "The Making of TQM: History and Margins of the Hi(gh)-Story" from 1994, Xu claims that "Total Quality Control" is translated incorrectly from Japanese since there is no difference between the words "control" and "management" in Japanese'. I'm interested in comment on the underlined bit.

Ta

[xiayule]

i don't think it's a chinese curse.

Chinese people say "乱世出英雄"，a changing world can breed heroes.like in the war time,some people from grassroot standing out to be leaders of the country or army.generally live in a time of change is not a curse in chinese.

but i guess the sentence you mentioned may be be used in a certain context.need more infomation to judge its exact meaning.

[in_lab]

Mike, you can still quote it ad naseum, just preface it by: "There's a fake ancient Chinese curse..."

[roddy]

"Confucius, had he read Who Moved My Cheese, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Chicken Soup for the Up-and-Coming Middle Manager's Soul, would have said 'The Chinese character for crisis in interesting times combines danger and opportunity . . .' "

Actually, does anyone want to come up with a plausible translation of 'may you live in interesting times' into Classical Chinese?

[Quest]

There isn't a curse like that in Chinese.....

[Mike]

Mike, you can still quote it ad naseum, just preface it by: "There's a fake ancient Chinese curse..."

Good point in-lab - btw really liked your blog about the scooters. In London you can leave your pedal cycle at most of the mainline railway stations, like Paddington. The rail company have installed rows of metal bars to which you can lock your bike. There are probably a few hundred bikes there each day. If you look closley the nature of this facility is revealed. Most of the bikes are clapped out old rattlers, rusty and in need of attention. Some have an important piece missing - often one of the wheels, sometimes both wheels! The ones in one piece are usually not of the more expensive kind and secured to the metal bars with several careful positioned locks to take in every component of the bike, including the seat. The task of releasing your bike must take ages. Instead of using the 'secure facility' many commuters use folding bikes: those that fold up to the size of a large briefcase. They drag these things backwards and forwards on the train between their house and their office. The problem is that so many people in London want what you have. I think that the system at Providence University works much better - every one, just about, has the same.

Thanks xiayule for 乱世出英雄 - so, out of change comes opportunity :-)

[in_lab]

Thanks for the comment, Mike. One thing I noticed in college is that there were a number of wheels locked to metal posts, with the rest of the bike missing. The rest of the bike was obviously stolen, but I thought it was kind of funny that the owner never retrieved his lock and wheel. I wonder if they were just too disappointed when they saw that their bike had been stolen, and so they decided they didn't want their lock and wheel.

[Mike]

Maybe if you just secure a wheel then the insurance company could say that you didn't secure your bike: insurance for push bikes away from the home usually requires that the bike was secured.

I'm not sure about the 'too dissapointed' in_lab. I suspect that the loser thought a nice straight-forward 'my bike was stolen' worked better for the insurance claim :-)