熟视无睹

Pronunciation: shú shì wú dǔ Literal meaning: Familiar sight, no notice

Origin & Usage

Liu Ling, the drinker among the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, wrote in praise of wine that his ideal man listens and does not hear thunder, 熟视不睹泰山之形 — looks hard (熟视) and does not see the bulk of Mount Tai. He meant it as transcendence, a mind too large to be disturbed; the modern form swaps his 不 for 无, no (无) seeing (睹) at all. The sense has entirely inverted since. It now names a failure rather than an achievement: the thing so familiar it has stopped registering, the problem walked past daily, the suffering in plain view that nobody sees any more.

Examples

English: "After years of living in the same neighborhood, he failed to notice the changes around him."

Chinese: 在同一个社区生活多年后，他没有注意到周围的变化。