Who have read Terry Pratchett's "Interesting times". It is a must read for anyone studding Chinese. Hilarius!!

One question: In the book he keep referring to a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times".

Is it an actual Chinese curse and what would it be in 汉字? Wikipedia is not very helpful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times .

On the contrary, the Wikipedia article seems quite helpful - none of the sources it gives for the proverb, with the exception of the slightly-related proverb about the dog, is actually Chinese, and the article indicates that a true Chinese source of this curse, which one of its first reported users calls "one of the principal Chinese curses", has been sought without luck, both indicating the unlikeliness of it actually being Chinese, and the unreliability of the British diplomat who referred to the proverb in the letter that is mentioned.

Hmm, just realized that the above is all one sentence... I'm bad that way.

Incidentally, what's the specific draw of "Interesting Times" to a student of Chinese?

I guess you are right. I should've rather said: Wikipedia isnt giving me the answer I wanted :D

About "Interesting Times":

The whole story plays of in China and Rincewind (the main character and ingeniously funny lingophile/wizard - Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.) keep getting in trouble with his Chinese pronunciation.

Agatean (Chinese in the book) is a language in which tone and inflection play a large part. Getting either wrong but using the right syllables will lead to weird interpretations. And a huge book-long running joke begins with a footnote saying that 'Aaargh' is not actually a universal scream. In some Disc languages, it means things like 'Highly enjoyable!' or 'I would like to eat your foot!' among other things. Therefore, those terms are substituted for screams. For at least one tribe, it is said to mean, "Quick! More boiling oil!", thus earning them a reputation for cruelty which is quite undeserved.

Also, in the complex Agatean written language (seven thousand pictograms), their version of an exclamation point is a dog passing water. So when Rincewind reads some Agatean things, it counts the number of exclamation points by saying, for example, "He spoke ill of the city ruler and the guard present did not disembowel him [urinating dog, urinating dog, urinating dog, urinating dog]

Pratchett also brings in Chinese culture and philosophy in his story. As usual he reforms it to something new and his own, what makes it so good is that you can still recognize the origin. Take this quote for example: "According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized."

or:

"Art of War, a doctrine penned by either One Tzu Sung, Three Sun Sung, or possibly some unsung genius. It consists of five rules and nine principles (and perhaps other things)."

From the beginning till the end the book are filled with Rincewind struggling with the Agatean language and culture.

"I guess you are right. I should've rather said: Wikipedia isnt giving me the answer I wanted :D"

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

;)

James