Casting Pearls Before the Cattle!? 對牛彈琴

The Chinese idiom 對牛彈琴 (dui4 niu2 tan2 qin2) literally means play the lute to the cattle. It alludes to the futility of addressing an audience in a language they cannot understand.

It originates from a story about an accomplished musician of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) who played his lute to a group of cattle and found that the cattle kept grazing and did not show any reaction to the music. After making careful observation of the cattle, the musician realised that the problem was not that the the cattle could not hear the music, but rather that they could not understand it. So the musician instead started to play the lute imitating the sounds of mosquitoes, houseflies and other insects. Immediately the cattle stopped grazing and listened intently.

The moral of the story is that one must direct one's message to the correct audience. It is pointless reading Hamlet to a group of kindergarten children and it is pointless discussing the intracacies of Eastern philosophy with someone who is a brick short of a load.

The English idiom cast pearls before the swine expresses a similar sentiment about tailoring one's message to different audiences. This expression comes from the King James Bible - Matthew 7/6:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.