During my weekly Japanese class last night, an “old Japanese proverb” was quoted. You’ve probably heard it:
The quote itself is eye-rolling, but didn’t seem very much in the spirit of the Japanese to me, and my teacher agreed. We both thought it sounded more like a Chinese, warrior-monk type of thing. So, I started to do some research to see if we could find something similar in the original Japanese. From what I have seen, I think this whole thing is bunk. In fact, I am not sure if there is any reference preceding its use in the 1993 movie Rising Sun, where Sean Connery utters the line:
So, SDMBers, I turn to you. Can anyone find an actual Japanese proverb that says this or something similar? Can you find it in Japanese? Can you even find a pre-1993 usage or reference? I think I’m ready to chalk it up to a meme/UL/heard-it-from-a-friend-of-a-fried-who-used-to-be-an-old-Japanese-person type of thing.
There’s a saying attributed to a number of crowded downtown places - New York’s Times Square, State & Madison in Chicago, Hyde Park in London - that if you stand there long enough, sooner or later everybody in the world goes by.
That saying has been around since I believe the end of the 19th century so it’s something in general culture that could easily be adapted into an aphorism about enemies. Especially if you combine it with Heraclitus’ “You cannot step twice into the same river.”
Yeah, we agreed it would sound much more like a Japanese proverb if it was something like “If you wait by the river long enough, everyone will float by.”
It’d sound even more Japanese if it was “if you wait by the river long enough, eventually a Peach Boy will float by.”
“The Peach Boy” is a charming old Japanese fairy tale in which an old, childless couple find a heaven-sent baby boy floating down a river in a giant peach. It’s not long before Momotaro (“Peach Boy”) sets off to rid the region of some pesky ogres living on an island not far away. On his journey, he gains some helpful animal & avian friends. Naturally, since Momotaro is an exceptional child/man/warrior figure (a real peach of a kid!), not to say armed with a fine katana sword, he succeeds bloodthirstily.
It’s funny how different times & cultures can have myths or fairy tales about messianic or liberational leaders (the OT’s Moses comes to mind) who were discovered/saved floating in a river as foundling infants…
Why do you say this? The Art of War is easily searchable at Google Books and I see nothing like this saying, after searching for river, float, body, and enemy.
Rather like the line, “We owe this victory to the English public school system” being erroneously attributed to the Duke of Wellington.
It doesn’t matter, he should have said it anyway.
