有眼不识泰山 yǒu yǎn bù shí tài shān

Literal meaning: to have eyes but fail to recognize Tai Shan, a famous carpenter in ancient China.

“有眼不识泰山”形容一个人见闻太浅，认不出地位高或本领大的人。 Chinese idiom “有眼不识泰山” is used to describe a person who is too ignorant/careless to identify a person of importance or great ability.

Origin

Chinese: 鲁班是中国古代著名的木匠，对徒弟要求很严格。他每隔一段时间就要从徒弟中淘汰不努力工作的人。有一年，有个叫泰山的年轻人因为技艺长进不大，而被鲁班辞掉了。

几年后，鲁班在集市上见到一批制作精巧的家具，想认识制造这些家具的高手。于是，鲁班便向当地人打听制作这些家具的人的名字，当听说他就是被自己赶走的泰山时，非常吃惊。鲁班感到非常惭愧，并且叹道：“我真是有眼不识泰山啊！”

English: In ancient times of China, there was a very famous carpenter named Lu Ban, who was very strict with his apprentices. From time to time, he would eliminate those who fooled around and didn’t work hard. One of his many apprentices, a young man Tai Shan was kicked out because of his slow improvement of arts.

Several years past, when Lu Ban saw lots of well-made furniture in the market, he wanted to know the man who made them. He asked people around him about the name of the carpenter and became so shocked when he got to know that the person who made the furniture was exactly Lu Ban, the apprentice that he kicked out years ago. Lu Ban felt so ashamed and sighed : “I was so arrogant to identify Tai Shan!”