One of my passions is studying the Chinese language. Much of this Chinese is derived from ancient language and based on some historical significance. In one of my previous posts, I introduced the idiom Teaching Fish to Swim and the story behind it. What we found out was that language itself is continuously evolving, the interpretations of these phrases taking on new uses as society changes. In the case of teaching fish to swim, the phrase was previously used to criticise those who liked to show off, nowadays it has also become a term which encourages people to challenge old ideas and not be afraid to take a lead in forming new ones.

Today, i'd like to introduce another interesting idiom:

Da4 Zhi4 Ruo4 Yu2 - Semantic translation : "great intelligence may appear to be stupidity."

Today's Chinese Idiom story —— Cats hide their paws

大智若愚 (Da4 Zhi4 Ruo4 Yu2) describes someone who appears inept or stupid when dealing with life situations and yet, may infact be highly intelligent. It might be something simple such as responding slowly, or acting in such a way that puts them at disadvantage, on the surface not allowing their intelligence to carry them.

In English, this idiom has often been compared to the phrase, Cats hide their paws.

大智若愚 originated from the southern song dynasty, a great thinker named Lang Ye wrote : "Great heroes may appear timid and the wise may appear stupid." What he meant was that those who possessed courage and valor may not readily show it and those who carry ability and wisdom may display little evidence so. The phrase is widely known and used, even a movie was named after it.

Historical examples of people who personified this phrase

In the late warring states period, a general named Wang Jian approached the Qin Emperor prior to leaving for battle and insisted that the Emperor bestow more land and property to him. To many of the generals contemporaries, this seemed like an act of stupidity, surely a General should fulfil his duties and obey the Emperor. It isn't his place to make demands. However, Wang Jian replied to the Emperor : "The Qin Emperor has given me sole command of the state's army, this has made him feel uneasy for fear of myself leading a revolt against the Qin Emperor. Therefore, my demands for land and assets may come across as greed for wealth, rank and splendour, but this fact will serve to assuage the emperor of further worries of my allegiance for I would be compensated handsomely and my accrued stake to defend and serve the country would overwrite any notion of revolt."

I believe that every situation can be viewed top down, or bottom up. How behaviour or action is perceived depends on which angle you look at. To the general public, a person who possesses and behaves "大智若愚" might be considered unintelligent, but they often fail to appreciate that the person may have a higher comprehension of the situation and remain fully in control. This is trait I believe all successful people possess.

A social example of
大智若愚 a cat hiding it's paws.

The Duke of Windsor was responsible for looking after guests at a royal banquet. A waiter brings a bowl of water to the guests (the bowl of water is for guests to wash their hands). However, the guests proceeded to drink from this bowl. They assumed drinking the water was royal banquet ettiquette. The nobles saw their behaviour and became agitated yet amused. However, the Duke of Windsor remained calm and collected, unaffected by the unorthodox behaviour of the guests and proceeded to drink water from his own bowl too. In the end, the atmosphere was quickly changed from awkward to harmonius, thanks to the Duke of Windsor.

In my opinion, the Banquet's success must be credited to the Duke of Windsor. Instead of behaving like someone who knows better, he chose to echo the guests and act none the wiser, drinking the water along with them. In this situation, he played a cat hiding it's paws to sway the awkwardness away. Obviously he understood on a higher level, the importance of adapting to different social contexts and in this case, saved everybody from cultural dispute.

An example of a cat hiding its paws in everyday life

A monk once asked a young man, "If I gave you a choice between a fishing rod or a basket of fish, which would you take?" To the monk's dismay, the young man chose the basket of fish. The monk then tried to pass his wisdom to the young man by saying "You think too superficially! Once you finish the fish, there will be no more left, but if you choose the fishing rod, you can catch fish indefinitely." To the Monk's surprise, the young man replied : "I was going to sell all the fish in the basket and use the money to buy several fishing rods, then I was going to rent the fishing rods out for money."

What we learn from this is that even in everyday life, those who are intelligent often seem impervious to reason and often have a "basket" of surprises up their sleeve. Superficially they may seem difficult to reason with, but it's only because they're different to most other people and thinking out of the box.

My Story

In my own life, I'm often playing the role of the cat hiding it's paws, but unlike some of the more lofty examples above, I usually end up just acting silly and fail to show my true intelligence. For example, despite knowing that eating a-lot will make me fat, and my friends recommending me to stop, I just can't help but continue..

Despite knowing i'll be late, I still can't get out of bed.

More often than not, it's hard to tell the boundaries of smart and dumb behaviour apart. Nowadays, the cat hiding it's paws (大智若愚) has developed it's own counter-phrase with just a slight rearrangement of characters (大愚若智).
This means "the ignorant fool who seems intelligent".

This is what happens when the cat doesn't hide it's paws..

Welcome to my world of Idioms #1——4

Teaching fish to swim
Love me, love my dog
To put the cart before the horse
One man's meat is another man's poison