班门弄斧

Pronunciation: bān mén nòng fǔ Literal meaning: Wield an axe at Lu Ban's gate

Origin & Usage

Brandishing (弄) an axe (斧) at the gate (门) of Lu Ban (班), the legendary carpenter and patron of Chinese craftsmen. The image was already proverbial when a Ming poet, finding graffiti scrawled on Li Bai's grave, wrote that writing verse there was like wielding a great axe at Lu Ban's door. It is most often used self-deprecatingly, by the person doing the wielding. It describes displaying a skill in front of somebody who actually has it, and the speaker is usually the one displaying.

Examples

English: "The amateur poet recited his work at the gathering of celebrated writers"

Chinese: 这位业余诗人在著名作家的聚会上朗诵了自己的作品