The literal meaning of "Do it yourself, have enough food and clothing" means that by doing it yourself, you can have enough food and clothing. You can also do it yourself. Through your own labor, you can have clothes to wear and food to eat. That is to say, through one's own labor, one can keep warm, clothed and fed; by extension, through one's own efforts, one can overcome the immediate difficulties and achieve success.

Extended information

In February 1939, Mao Zedong put forward the slogan "Do it yourself" at the Yan'an Production Mobilization Conference in response to the increasingly serious economic difficulties in the base areas. Subsequently, various base areas gradually launched large-scale production movements. The slogan "Do it yourself, have enough food and clothing" serves as the goal of each base area to overcome economic difficulties and achieve self-sufficiency in production. After liberation, this slogan has always been the party and government's call to action to encourage the people to produce and help themselves when economic difficulties occurred across the country or a certain region.

The eight words "do it yourself" and "enough food and clothing" are not only the calligraphy treasures left by Mao Zedong for us, but more importantly, whenever we see these two famous quotes, they remind us of Yan'an University. The difficult years of the production movement.