Meaning: a porridge and a meal are hard to come by; For half silk or half wisp of clothes, always remember that it is very difficult to make these materials.

Source: Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasty? "Zhu Jiaxun"

Excerpt from the original text: get up at dawn, sweep the courtyard, clean and tidy inside and outside, rest when you are sleepy, close the door and be careful yourself. It is not easy to think about a porridge and a meal; It is difficult to keep thinking about material resources.

Get up at dawn every morning, sprinkle water on the ground inside and outside the court before sweeping the floor to make it clean and tidy; At dusk, you should have a rest and check for yourself whether the door is locked. For a porridge and a meal, think hard; For half-silk or half-thread clothes, we should always remember that it is very difficult to produce these materials.

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The whole content of Zhu Zi's Family Instructions is to persuade people to be thrifty and keep the house, obey the rules and so on. It carries forward China's moral education thought formed for thousands of years and shows it in the form of famous sayings and epigrams. It can be taught orally, written as couplets, hung in the gate, hall and bedroom, and can also be used as the motto of managing the family and educating children. Therefore, it is very popular with bureaucrats, gentry and scholarly families. Since its publication, it has been widely circulated and regarded as a "classic of family management" by scholars of past dynasties. It used to be a must-see place for children from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.