Quoted from
http://www3.sympatico.ca/dstephen1/harvardnonsense.htm
The following contains some Chinese characters.
- “Graffiti left on the wall of the study room in the Harvard Library at 4 a.m./Scribble left on the desk…” (*)(哈佛圖書館自習室凌晨4點牆上/桌上留言) appeared on mainland China Internet BBS sites. This quickly morphed into “Twenty mottoes engraved on the wall of the study room in the Harvard Library.” One source claimed that the misinformation came from a misquotation of CCTV’s on site interview of a student from the People’s Republic of China.(央视《世界著名大学》制片人谢娟曾带摄制组到哈佛大学采访…百度贴吧 – 珠海一中吧-- 以下引自 贴吧404 floor 10 第 10 楼 学校贴的那个是假的，树根跟我们研究过，那个只是一个哈佛留学生在图书管接受记者采访说的，记者是个标题党才这样写，)
Earliest examples of Harvard Library study room wall VTC atatement and http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4ea2bc9b01000am9.html I can find (2007-09-24 and 09-26). Image 1 … Image 2 …
(*)“Scribble left on the desk…”: Ivy Times (Korea):“There are many scribbles on the desks of Harvard’s central library. They include: “If you sleep now, you will have a dream, but if you study now, you will realize a dream”; “Even though happiness is not based on a person’s performance records, success is the likely result”; and “If you study one more hour, you will have a better husband.” The scribbl(e)s reflect the desperation many Harvard students feel.”
March, 2008. The Chinese magazine 《讀者》(Readers) published the article “Mottoes on the wall of the Harvard Library”(Chinese version only) (《讀者》雜志在當年第7期上刊登了作者署名為“愛誰誰”的《哈佛圖書館牆上的訓言》一文，但只有中文內容。)
Early 2008. Two different English versions started to proliferate. Both versions were in broken English. One was later identified as the handiwork of the translation software Babel Fish.
Two Versions.
June, 2008. Danny Feng’s book “ALLOCUTIONS ON THE WALL OF THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY” hit the market in Mailand China(PRC) and quickly climbed to number seven on the best selling list.
In respond to an inquiry from Mr. Chan, 上海市田园高级中学英语教研组组长, Deborah Kelley-Milburn, Research Librarian & Virtual Reference Coordinator at Harvard University, said unequivocally that such “sayings” do not exist.
Jan 4th, 2010 Mr. Chan contacted the publisher, who, in turn, contacted Mr.Feng.
Jan 4th, 2010, Danny Fung, the author of the book “ALLOCUTIONS ON THE WALL OF THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY” admitted it was all fabricated.
You can find the Chinese newspaper report: “哈佛墙上的训言开国际玩笑 作者承认编造” on the Internet.
Note, however, the “Harvard at 4:00 a.m.” post has been in circulation since at least 2007, while Mr. Fung’s book was published only in 2008.
Mar 2010. “Some words of knowledge from the toilet in Harvard” appeared on the Internet. Apparently it was a corrupted Chinese version in circulation in Korea. This version has thirty sayings.
Oct 30th, 2010, Chinese newspaper ran a story about Harvard at 4:30 a.m. without realizing it was a fabrication. In the story was the set of 20 mottoes. This set off a frenzy of “reprints”, particularity on the SINA blog space, with slightly different variations in contents and titles. Newspaper article
Nov. 2010. Harvard Librarian put up “answer” on their “Ask a librarian” webpage. (See picture on the top of this page.
Early 2011. One of those sayings was used as a topic of discussion for Beijing University student recruitment interview.
Question #3 says:Give your thoughts on what is written in the Harvard Library:“Please enjoy the unavoidable suffering.”
考题 #3. 哈佛大学图书馆墙上写有这样一句话：“请享受无法回避的痛苦”，谈谈你的理解。”
此刻打盹，你将做梦；而此刻学习，你将圆梦。(This moment will nap, you will have a dream; But this moment study,you will interpret a dream.)starts appearing in Chinese provincial high school exams. Article is in Chinese
2010-now. Mainland Chinese teachers, school principals, tutorial school teachers, motivation speakers, and promoters of the lucrative overseas studies trade frantically promote these “Commandments” and/or various versions of an article portraying Harvard students as hardworking and Spartan, not even talking during lunch and solemnly walking through campus without pausing to chat.
In Mainland China, people are jumping onto the Harvard Library Mottoes bandwagon in droves! There are parents who claimed their children “transcripted” it from the Harvard Library Wall–strange that the transcription was in Chinese. Tourists returning to Mainland China from a trip to Boston proudly showed off their on-campus photos captioned with a quote of the mottoes. There are even liars who claimed they had copied them down from the wall of the Harvard Library or children of friends had done so. 皇帝的新衣
The “rather die than lose face” mentality has prevented the majority of these individuals from admitting they have been had. Many of them resort to the defence that although the whole thing may have been fabricated, it is nonetheless good for motivating students.