Origins
No known user of the English phrase has supplied the purported Chinese language original, and the Chinese language origin of the phrase, if it exists, has not been found, making its authenticity, at least in its present form, very doubtful.
| Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored 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. |
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— Frederic R. Coudert, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1939 |
Another piece of evidence that the phrase was in use as early as 1936 is provided by a memoir written by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen who was the British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937. The memoir describes an instance of a friend of Knatchbull-Hugessen using the phrase:
| Before I left England for China in 1936 a friend told me that there exists a Chinese curse — "May you live in interesting times". If so, our generation has certainly witnessed that curse's fulfilment. |
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— Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, Diplomat in Peace and War, 1949 |
Since the memoir was published in 1949, the accuracy of the 1936 date depends on the precision of Knatchbull-Hugessen’s memory, but the quotation is consistent with the timeline of his Ambassadorial service in China, and the consistency between his and Coudert's dates is difficult to refute.
The phrase plus mention as a Chinese curse also shows up in "Child Study Association of America, Federation for Child Study (U.S.)" in 1943.
Read more about this topic: May You Live In Interesting Times
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