Dear Eric: i think it's a Chinses proverb."To watch flowers while riding on horseback" in chinese is 走马观花or走马看花。(zou ma guan hua or zou ma kan hua) it has several meannings: 1.to glance over things hurriedly 2.gain a superficial understanding through cursory observation. 3.skim the surface. i hope my answer can help you.

The answers are as following: 1)Strictly speaking, it's a Chinese idiom not a proverb.. 2)I prefer “having given a cursory look and gained shallow understanding” to "gaining a superficial understanding through cursory observation”. The reasons are as following: 3)Here, 观 equals 看，just like坐井观天. 4)“观察”:仔细察看客观事物或现象，如“观察地形”、“观察问题”。（Look round objective things or phenomenon, like “observation terrain”, “observation question”.） More Points are as following: 5)原意：春风得意的样子 Its original intention is elated with success appearance. 常用来形容不深入细致地观察事物，只是粗略地观察，比喻被表面现象所迷惑。 Usually used to describe non-depth and non-meticulous observation of things, only a rough observed, the analogy is confused by the superficial phenomenon. 6) 近义词(near idioms): 浮光掠影; 反义词(contrary idioms) : 下马看花 The sources are as following: 7） 唐代著名诗人孟郊，40岁以前一直过着隐居生活。后来在母亲的勉励下，他赴京城赶考。但两次都没考中，第三次才终于榜上有名。高兴之余，他提笔写下了《登科后》一诗，用以表达自己喜悦的心情，诗的后两句是“春风得意马蹄疾，一日看尽长安花。后人就此概括出了“走马观花”这个成语。 8）另有民间传说，录此供分享：有一个媒人，给一个瘸腿男子和一个兔唇姑娘说媒（相亲），让男孩骑马，女孩手持一朵花假装在嗅。直到两人成婚才发现上当。

"To watch flowers while riding on horseback", in vietnamese there is one idiom which has the same meaning [cuz vietnamese is very similar to chinese] : "Cưỡi ngựa xem hoa". Its meaning is "not to go in details", it also indicates the fishtail-palm attitude.

Dear Eric: i think it's a Chinses proverb."To watch flowers while riding on horseback" in chinese is 走马观花or走马看花。(zou ma guan hua or zou ma kan hua) it has several meannings: 1.to glance over things hurriedly 2.gain a superficial understanding through cursory observation. 3.skim the surface. i hope my answer can help you. She gave U a perfect answer expect the 3th explaination. It should be just concern about the surface.

走马观花