A Chinese elephant idiom
盲人摸象 (mang ren mo xiang), is literally translated as ‘Blind men touching the Elephant'.
There once were four blind men. One man was a successful Accountant, another was a wise Scholar, another was a renowned Doctor and the last blind man was a famous Fortuneteller. They had all met in a market and each took turns to boast about their achievements and admirable reputations. The Accountant claimed that his calculations were never wrong, the Scholar declared that he was the smartest of the bunch, the Doctor professed that his medical practices were the most heard of, and the Fortuneteller stated that he was the most powerful of them all. Inevitably they broke out into an argument. Then an elephant and his guide came through the market. The guide announced the elephant’s arrival. Slowly, the men began to approach the elephant and were positioned at various parts of its body. The Accountant touched the elephant’s ears and thought it was a fan. The Scholar felt the trunk of the elephant and was adamant that it was a snake. The Doctor was at the elephant’s rear and was certain that its tail was a rope. And the Fortuneteller glided his hands across the body of the elephant thinking that it was a wall. The elephant guide then posed the questioned; 大象怎么样？which means, ‘how is an elephant?’. The men individually described the elephant but their bickering quickly resumed as they all argued for their particular view (that the elephant is a fan, snake, rope and wall). The elephant's guide told them that they were all wrong because they had all experienced different parts of the elephant.
The moral of the story appears to be that we should not be like the blind men who touched the elephant （不要像盲人摸象一样）-- we should not jump to conclusions with insufficient data/information/evidence.
It seems that Hungarian and German share this proverb about making an elephant out of a mosquito: Ne csinálj szúnyogból elefántot. Is this expression very common? Are there others you can share with us?
I found this Swahili proverb about elephants: "Hukupata nguvu za kushinda njovu." (You don't have the strength to defeat an elephant. = Don't try the impossible.). Is it in common use? Are there other interesting elephant expressions you can share with us?
