
01-Mar-2005, 14:00
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Not Confucius. Probably not even Chinese. Quote: |
Originally Posted by Casiopea 1. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
2. Confucius, K'ung Fu-tzu, K'ung-tzu, Kong Zi, Kong Qiu, Zhong Ni
Circa 551 - 479 | Not true. The most common Chinese variant of this saying is 授人以鱼不如授人以渔 , which means "To give a man fish is not as good as to give [teach] him fishing."
Confucius is most likely not the author of even that quote, which Chinese-language enthusiasts discussed here. Let me cite 古月, who appears to be the most knowledgable on that thread: [translated from Chinese by me] Quote:
The English version that Yeti posted is what I hear foreigners use all the time. The inherited Chinese version is now becoming common, too, but the wording is still all over the place — I have also seen the “授人鱼,供一餐之用;授人渔,则享用不尽” version. The citers basically all begin with “ancient people stated…”, “ancient people said…”, “there’s an old saying…” with some going so far as to use “foreigners say China has this ancient saying…” etc. This is one of the many unsettled issues in the world’s gold-jade beautiful words industry. Everybody propagates, everybody uses, full of creativity and wisdom. Even though everybody keeps saying this is “Chinese wisdom”, Chinese scholars are still pedantic. Is this really a case of “[cultural] exchange” or “piracy” and “counterfeit”? No one can determine. Where do words come from? Very likely only God knows :-)
“Confucius says, ‘May you live in interesting times!’”, “There’s a Chinese proverb, “Don’t take off your pants when having sex.” This type of dubious [“] Chinese [”] old sayings are as abundant as a cow’s hair, no way to verify them one by one. Some are altogether made up by foreigners who, in order to heighten effects, put their own witticism on Chinese philosophers’ heads. If the thing is composed rather cleverly, like this “fish/fishing” one, then it becomes widespread. When it spreads to China, prominent people have this translation, and it sounds authentic to boot. Such a high-quality maxim, who can refuse? This process of establishing a common expression as “a Chinese ancient saying” is actually quite logical.
| That should settle the issue. If not, there's a more detailed write-up on my personal site. |