One phrase you might occasionally hear in China is “Wu Zhi Nong Min” or “Ignorant Peasants”. This phrase has two meanings. The first and older one is used to refer those people, usually farmers, who have very little formal education and lack the inclination to view things in a larger perspective. They do not understand things outside their narrow world view.
I recall coming across this phrase when talking to one of my Feng Shui teachers, a highly educated professor of psychology who also happens to be a 22th generation family lineage Feng Shui and Yi Jing master. This school of Feng Shui uses the Chinese Lo Pan, or geomantic compass and the Yi Jing to determine the Feng Shui of a location. The Lo Pan is itself extremely complex, requiring considerable training and education to use.
I asked him about the differences between his school of Feng Shui and another more popular one that is much less complicated. For example, instead of calculating the direction of the front door and then deriving the Yi Jing directional correspondences, the popular school simply says, “open your front door, that is South.”
He said “That is ignorant peasant Feng Shui. They don’t have the proper education to use the complete method, so there is a simplified one for them to use.” His comment, though said humorously was not a put-down, but a statement of fact. He used “ignorant” in the sense of its original meaning.
The second way of using “ignorant peasants” is decidedly pejorative. In 1956, when schools and universities where closed on the mainland, leadership positions in government and industry where given to loyalists. These people no doubt fought bravely and supported the new government, but they were often former revolutionary farmers ill-trained for managing enterprises, that is, the poster children for “ignorant peasants.” Because their positions gave them power, they were feared, but they were not respected. People called them “ignorant peasants” behind their back. Eventually the term developed an extended usage as a put down, regardless of the actual competence of the individual.
I came across the use of the term as a put down when talking to a moderately famous (in China) Xing Yi practitioner. The question I asked him was “Why do some Xing Yi schools practice their five element fists in different orders?” His answer was “The fists should only be practiced in the generating cycle of the Wu Xing like we do it in our school. We have the original style of Xing Yi. Probably the other schools that do it differently were founded by ignorant peasants who didn’t understand the five elements.”
When I meet another teacher of an art I already study, sometimes I will ask simple questions about well known differences between the various schools to gauge the person’s point of view and personality. In this case, although the teacher was a very nice person and very good at his style of Xing Yi, his views were pretty narrow minded.
There are valid reasons from both martial and Qigong perspectives to practice the five element fists in different orders (for example, you can practice them in the controlling cycle). If this teacher did not know of these other reasons, then he is ignorant. If he knew of them but disagreed, there really was no good reason to put the other schools down. Rather, he seemed to relish the opportunity to “Bian Di Bie Ren Tai Gao Zi Ji” to put others down in order to build his school up.
It is hard to keep a straight face when the person you are talking to tells you everyone else is wrong and he is the best because they are ignorant peasants. He was acting like an “ignorant peasant” in the original sense of the term.
However, we should resist the temptation to judge him too harshly. He may not even be even aware of what he’s doing. Instead we should learn from him – learn what not to do! What not to do is sometimes the best lesson we can learn from some people.
Learn not to be an “ignorant peasant.”
