A few years ago, webnovel translator and author, Deathblade, uploaded a video promising to tell us the “shocking truth” about the common Chinese idiom to “have eyes but fail to recognize Mount Tai”. In the video he says:

The shocking truth is that the Taishan in the phrase you yan bu shi tai shan is NOT Mount Tai. It is not the mountain that’s famous in China. It’s actually referring to a person.

He seems quite sure of himself. Indeed he leaves no room for argument:

So, in the phrase ‘have eyes but fail to recognize Mount Tai’, it really shouldn’t be Mount Tai, it should just be a guy, Taishan…

…and considering you’re talking about a mountain, to use ‘Mount Tai’ also kind of makes sense, even though it’s not correct.

Deathblade is not simply suggesting that one or both of these stories might possibly be the origin of the idiom. He’s saying that they for sure are the origin and that translating taishan as “Mount Tai” is wrong.

But what makes him so sure?

He says, “I’ve seen a couple different versions when I was doing research…” Okay good, so what is this research? What is the source of these stories?

He doesn’t say. No source is given in the video for either version of the story. Someone in the comments of the video did ask him for a source, and he replied with a link to a Baike article. Baike is China’s answer to Wikipedia, but much less rigorous with regard to citing sources. The article he linked to does not give a source for either version of the story.

Our benighted eyes have been enlightened after all these years thanks to… a wiki article?

Seriously?

He thinks a wiki article that doesn’t say where the stories came from is good enough evidence to definitively conclude that the centuries-old conventional wisdom is wrong?

That’s what he considers “doing research”?

The complex question of where does an expression that has been around since at least the Ming dynasty come from can be solved by simply googling it? (Excuse me, Baiduing it.)

If you search for the idiom in Chinese online, you will find scores of clickbait articles spouting the same thing, often simply copy/pasted from each other, none of them giving a source for the story. Now we have it in video form.

I have so far been unable to locate any mention of either version of these stories in any classical text (or elsewhere), nor even any mention of Lu Ban having an apprentice or son named Taishan.

In order to determine where the idiom came from, one needs to establish:

• When and where did the story appear? And if possible, who wrote it?
• What evidence is there linking the story to the idiom? Just because there is a story about Lu Ban and a guy named Taishan doesn’t necessarily mean that story had anything to do with the idiom.
• What evidence is there that the story appeared before the idiom? Why couldn’t the story have been made up after the idiom was already in use? Why assume the story had to come first?

None of this is addressed in the video, nor is any explanation given for why people have always assumed that the expression referred to Mount Tai. Why does everyone think it’s Mount Tai? What’s so important about Mount Tai that it would be used as a symbol for someone of great importance or talent?

Deathblade seems unaware of the significance of Mount Tai in Chinese culture and history. In the video he latches onto the definition about not recognizing talent as if this is the key to understanding the true meaning of the expression. He’s figured out a secret that has somehow eluded everyone else, laymen and sinologists alike, for centuries. All because the definition referring to failing to recognize talent fit better with the conclusion he had already decided on. But what about failing to recognize a person of high status or importance? That doesn’t fit at all with the Mr. Taishan stories, since in those Taishan is either Lu Ban’s apprentice or his son, not a person of high status or importance. That’s not very convenient. In the video he never questions the significance of Mount Tai and why everyone has been duped into thinking the expression is about a mountain.

He literally fails to recognize Mount Tai.

All he says about Mount Tai is that it’s a famous mountain. And that’s true, it is. But it’s much more than just a famous mountain. It’s the famous mountain. Mount Tai is one of the Five Marchmounts, the five most sacred mountains in China, that as sinologist Edward H. Schafer explained,

“stood at the four extremities of the habitable world, the marches of man’s proper domain, the limits of the ritual tour of the Son of Heaven. There was, of course, a fifth—a kind of axial mount in the center of the world.¹

As Stephen Bokenkamp put it:

Mount Tai was regarded as an axis where the deities of Heaven and those of Earth might meet. China did not have a single axis mundi, however, but five—all holy mountains located roughly in the four cardinal directions and the symbolic “center” of the realm. Mount Tai was associated, in this five-phase ordered symbolic map of the kingdom, with the east, spring, and new growth. It was thus appropriate for a rite celebrating the beginning of a new dynastic line.

But Mount Tai was more than the royal passage between Heaven and Earth or a symbol of cosmic beginnings. Popular belief held that the souls of the dead proceeded to an administratively organized purgatory beneath the mountain and its peaks hid caverns and springs that were the dwellings of spirits. In addition, during the Qin (221-207 B.C.E.) and Han (206 B.C.E-220 C.E.) dynasties, Shandong was home to various schools of fangshi (wonderworkers and wizards), some of whom were able to win the allegiance of both Ying Zheng and Liu Che. These fangshi told of islands of immortality, inhabited by winged Transcendent beings, which floated just beyond sight in the eastern sea. Some held that the floating islands could sometimes be glimpsed from the summit of Mount Tai; others, arguing that specific ritual observances could cause the Transcendent beings to appear, held that the emperor could gain long life through accomplishing the Feng rite. The Feng rites of Ying Zheng and Liu Che were conducted in the stricted secrecy, in hopes of just such occurrences.²

The Feng and Shan rites were the two most important ritual sacrifices made by the Son of Heaven, the Feng rite offered at the summit of Mount Tai, and the Shan rite at the foot of Mount Tai on Mount Liangfu.

The term feng means “to seal.” Liu Xiu’s announcement to Heaven was written on some tablets and enclosed in a stone coffer sealed with his official insignia. This coffer was further to be “sealed” within the piled earth of the ritual platform and covered with two massive stones. The earth placed around the coffer was to be of the “five colors” symbolizing the four directions and the center; that is, the entire realm. Shan means “to clear away” and was interpreted to mean the clearing of a ritual space on Liangfu for the rites to Earth…

The ultimate purpose of the Feng rite, then, was to enact the sealing of a covenant between the emperor, one of whose titles was “child of Heaven,” and Heaven, also called the “Thearch on High.” The Shan rite was meant to actualize a similar covenant with the feminine divinity of Earth. Through this covenant, the position of humanity between Heaven and Earth was secured and the mediating status of a specific dynastic assured.³

Clearly Mount Tai was endowed with much significance, so it is hardly surprising that it would be used as a symbol for someone important or something “weighty”. In An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Idioms, the entry for the “taishan” phrase is:⁴

There is no mention of any “Mr. Taishan” story, nor do any of the citations lead to a source text for either of the “Mr. Taishan” stories. The entry lists The “Nine Preservations” chapter of the Wenzi as a possible earliest source:

夫目察秋毫之末者，耳不聞雷霆之聲，耳調金玉之音者，目不見太山之形，故小有所志，則大有所忘。
In any case, one whose eyes are examining the tip of [a strand of a bird’s] autumn down will not hear the sound of thunder and lightning, and one whose ears are listening to the tuning of metal and jade will not see the shape of Mount Tai. Therefore, if you focus on what is small, then you will be oblivious to what is large.⁵

The Wenzi (Master Wen) is a politico-philosophical text purportedly conveying the sayings of Laozi, and its content has been shown to have been largely taken from the Huainanzi (Master of Huainan), which is traditionally dated to 139 BC.⁶

So then, the Huainanzi came first, and indeed, a similar passage occurs there as well:

夫目察秋毫之末，耳不聞雷霆之聲；耳調玉石之聲，目不見太山之高。何則？小有所志，而大有所忘也。
The ears of one whose eyes are examining the tip of an autumn hair will not hear the sound of thunder and lightning. The eyes of one whose ears are harmonizing the tones of jade and stone will not see the form of Mount Tai. Why is this? They are attending to what is small and forgetting what is big.⁷

As you can see, Mount Tai has long been taken as a symbol of largeness, weightiness, importance. Although the meaning in the above passages is not quite the same as the idiom we are discussing, the important part is that Mount Tai is used to represent something large or important. The Huainanzi has many more examples of such usage:

清之為明，杯水見眸子；濁之為暗，河水不見太山。
With the clarity of what is pure, a cup of water reveals [the reflection of ] an eyeball.
With the darkness of what is murky, the water of the [Yellow] River does not reveal [even the reflection of ] Mount Tai.⁸

I should note that the above passages write Taishan 太山 instead of the more commonly-known 泰山. It’s original name was 岱山, or 岱宗. Whichever writing is used, it’s always associated with the sacred, with importance, and loftiness:

泰山之容，巍巍然高，去之千里，不見埵堁，遠之故也。秋豪之末，淪於不測。是故小不可以為內者，大不可以為外矣。
The appearance of Mount Tai is majestically high, but if you go a thousand li away from it, it looks smaller than an earthen embankment. This is because of the distance.
The tip of an autumn hair can get lost in the unfathomable. This means that what is so small that nothing can be placed inside it is [the same as] something so large that nothing can be placed outside it.⁹

We see the same images recurring, that of Mount Tai, and as the note to this passage in Major’s translation explains, “The tip of a downy hair just beginning to emerge through an animal’s skin in autumn is a standard ancient Chinese metaphor for the smallest possible thing.”

The above passages also hint at perception, not mere sight, a key component of our idiom (the ability to recognize someone of importance or talent). This association is more explicit in other passages:

逐獸者目不見太山，嗜欲在外，則明所蔽矣。聽有音之音者聾，聽無音之音者聰；不聾不聰，與神明通。
When you pursue a wild animal, your eyes will not notice Mount Tai. When you crave and desire something external, your perception will be impaired.

Those who hear the sound of a sound are deaf. Those who hear the sound of no sound are discerning. Those who are neither deaf nor discerning have penetrated through to spirit illumination.¹⁰

The meaning of these passages and their association with discernment is clear. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to me that these associations might have led to the eventual creation of our Mount Tai idiom. All these examples unambiguously refer to a mountain, not a man. There’s even a passage in the Huainanzi that associates mountains with important people:

海不受流胔，太山不上小人。
The sea does not accept floating carrion; Mount Tai does not elevate the petty person.¹¹

This usage seems to be saying that an unworthy or unqualified person cannot ascend the mountain.

Then of course there is also reference to weight as importance, the famous quotation from Sima Qian, made famous in modern times by Chairman Mao Zedong:

人固有一死，死有重於泰山，或輕於鴻毛，用之所趨異也。
Surely, a man has but one death. That death may be as heavy as Mount Tai or as light as a goose feather. It is how he uses that death that makes all the difference!¹²

Sima Qian, who wrote China’s early seminal work of history, Records of the Grand Historian, was writing in the late 90s BC in response to a letter from his friend, Ren An, who had been jailed for suspected involvement in a rebellion of the crown prince against Emperor Wu of Han. Sima Qian did not explain what he meant by this simile because he didn’t need to; he expected Ren An to know what he meant. And what he meant by “heavy” and “light” is that one’s death can be of importance—he can die for an important cause—or his death can be insignificant.

Need I go on?

The “shocking truth”, it turns out, is not shocking at all. The truth is we don’t know where the idiom “I have eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai” came from. Where it originated. Who first wrote it and when. If whoever invented the idiom was thinking of one of the passages quoted above when he coined it. Or if it had other origins.

But I think it’s clear that Mount Tai, the mountain, has had a long history as a symbol of largeness, importance, and significance. Given the absence of any evidence at all in support for the “Mr. Taishan” theory, there’s no reason to assume its validity.

The above passages do not prove that the idiom refers to a mountain and not a man. I do not make that claim. I merely note that there is a lot of evidence to suggest a mountain as the most likely referent. I will gladly consider evidence in favor of the “Mr. Taishan” view, if ever any is put forth.

Surely, though, we can all agree that a wiki article that cites no source is not nearly sufficient for accepting such a theory.

~GZ

1. Schafer, E.H., 1978. Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars. Berkeley: U. of California, p.6.
2. Bokenkamp, Stephen, 1996. Religions of China in practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p.252.
3. Bokenkamp, Stephen, 1996. Religions of China in practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp.252-253.
4. Liu, Haoxiu 刘洁修, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Idioms 汉语成语考释词典, The Commercial Press 商务印书馆, 1989, p.1410.
5. 《文子·九守·守靜》https://ctext.org/wenzi/shou-jing/zh; translation my own.
6. “…there can be no doubt that the Huainanzi served as the source for the received Wenzi, rather than the other way around.”

   van Els, Paul. The Wenzi, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 06 Mar. 2018), p.6.

7. Liu, A. and Major, J., 2010. The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, p.104.
8. Liu, A. and Major, J., 2010. The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, p.627.
9. Liu, A. and Major, J., 2010. The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, p.630-631.
10. Liu, A. and Major, J., 2010. The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, p.668-669.
11. Liu, A. and Major, J., 2010. The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, p.692.
12. Durrant, Stephen W., Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess. 2016. The Letter to Ren An & Sima Qian’s Legacy, p.26.