班门弄斧 (bān mén nòng fǔ)
Respecting Rank
To explain the origin and meaning of the Chinese idiom Ban Men Nong Fu, or “flaunting one’s proficiency with an axe in front of Lu Ban,” we must first introduce two great names in Chinese history.
One is Lu Ban, a legendary master carpenter, and the other is Li Bai, one of the greatest poets the Chinese nation has ever produced.
Lu lived in the State of Chu around the time that the Spring and Autumn Period (770-467 BC) was replaced by the Warring States Period (476-221 BC). As a carpenter, Lu was exceptionally dexterous with all kinds of tools, including axes.
To help his state battle its enemies, the carpenter invented various weapons, such as tactical push-hooks for fighting on boats and scaling-ladders for attacking walled cities. In addition, he created a number of carpenter’s tools and helped build many famous bridges and palaces in the state.
Lu was remembered by successive generations as the best carpenter in Chinese history and the father of Chinese carpentry.
Li Bai (701-762 AD) was a highly-gifted poet during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the golden age of Chinese poetry. After his death, people built a beautiful tomb for him in Caishiji, a craggy bank along the Yangtze River in today’s Anhui Province.
Almost every day, throngs of his admirers visited the tomb. And, more often than not, they scribbled one or two poems on the tombstone as if visiting it gave them some fleeting inspiration.
Many hundred years later, a scholar called Mei Zhihuan went to visit Li’s tomb. When he found the tombstone was almost totally covered by poorly-written verses, he decided to add to the “anthology” to prevent any more poems on it.
Mei’s poem reads, to this effect, “A tomb near the Caishi River marks the everlasting fame of Li Bai; to and fro, every passer-by writes a poem on the tombstone just like an unskilled carpenter trying to show off his proficiency with an axe in front of Lu Ban.”
Although the scholar’s poem did not stop people from continuing to write on Li’s tomb, his expression has since become a popular idiom in the Chinese language.
Today, it is cited either to ridicule someone who displays lesser skills before an expert, or to express one’s modesty when demonstrating a skill in front of colleagues.