blind men sizing up the elephant(xiā zǐ mō xiàng)

blind men sizing up the elephant

The Chinese idiom, Pinyin is Xi ā Z ǐ m ō Xi à ng, which means that one knows a little about things and does not judge the whole situation. From Sun Li's Wenlin Tanxie.

The origin of Idioms

Sun Li's Wenlin talks about scraps: "I think that Lu Xun's drawing lessons from foreign countries is just a pursuit of" modernization "in his creation. That's a ridiculous talk about blind people feeling for images."

Analysis of Idioms

Similar words: the blind touch the elephant

Idiom usage

If we don't understand the internal comprehensive mechanism of knowledge as a whole, isn't it just like a blind man feeling for an elephant to study the interaction between individual knowledge departments (elements) separately? The whole function of social cognition system points to social practice. Examples of Idioms

Idiom story

When a king tells a minister that you are blind by holding an elephant, all the blind people touch each other. The king calls all the blind people to ask, what kind of elephant do you see? If you touch the teeth, you will speak like a radish root. If you touch the ears, you will speak like a dustpan. If you touch the feet, you will speak like a mortar. If you touch the spine, you will speak like a bed. If you touch the abdomen, you will speak like a jar. If you touch the tail, you will speak like a rope. There is a king told the Minister: you lead an elephant to show in front of the blind, then the blind people touch with their hands. The king called the blind people to ask them: what do you touch the elephant like? The blind people who touch the elephant's teeth say that the shape of the elephant is like the root of a radish; The blind man who touches the elephant's ears says it's like a dustpan; the blind man who touches the elephant's feet says it's like a stone mortar; the blind man who touches the elephant's back says it's like hemp clothes; the blind man who touches the elephant's belly says it's like pottery; the blind man who touches the elephant's tail says it's like hemp rope.

Chinese PinYin : xiā zǐ mō xiàng