More Ersatz Chinese Proverbs

Sorry for the lack of posing.  As academics know, it's "that" time of year: one pile of papers has been graded just in time for an influx of forty more; meetings with students about theses and independent studies crowd the calendar, and every committee out there is calling a meeting this week and next.  It's the end of the semester and everyone in running crazy...

But here's a little something a friend sent to me: a post over at Language Log, by the great Sinologist/translator Victor Mair.  In it, he deconstructs statements that are supposedly authored by "Lao Tzu" and Confucius but that turn out to be simply made up or wildly and inaccurately extrapolated.  He also links to another post at another blog where he debunks the now familiar "Chinese saying" that "crisis contains both danger and opportunity."    All that I can add is: what he said!

This reminds me of two posts of my own.  In the first (over four and a half years ago) I point out that "may you live in interesting times" is not a Chinese curse, nor even Chinese.  And in the second I question another "saying" attributed to the Tao Te Ching - and interestingly it intersects with the "Lao Tzu" quotation that Mair knocks down.

As I said some time ago: There are plenty of great Chinese proverbs; we don't need to make any up.

Comments

[Dan]

Yeah, but it's fun to make them up too....