One porridge and one meal should be remembered as hard-earned; It comes from Zhu Bolu's "Family Instructions" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is known as "Zhu Xi's Family Instructions".

Translation: For a piece of porridge or a meal, we should think about the hard-won; for half a thread or half a thread of clothing, we should always think about how difficult it was to produce these materials. of.

"Zhu Xi's Maxims on Family Governance" was written by Zhu Bolu in the early Qing Dynasty. Zhu Bolu (1617~1688), a famous Neo-Confucianist and educator. The name is pure and the word is consistent. A native of Kunshan (now part of Jiangsu). Together with Gui Youguang and Gu Yanwu, they are known as the "Three Sages of Kunshan". Ming Zhusheng. In the second year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1645), his father was killed while defending Kunshan City against the Qing army. Zhu Bailu served his mother, raised his younger brothers and sisters, and was homeless, which was extremely difficult.

After the situation calms down, return home. Because he admired the meaning of "Pan Bailu Tomb" (which means not forgetting the revenge of killing his father) by Wang Pei from Jin Dynasty, he named himself Bailu. He taught students in his hometown and devoted himself to his studies. Based on Cheng and Zhu's Neo-Confucianism, he advocated the simultaneous advancement of knowledge and practice and practice. Throughout his life, he had a calm spirit, strict self-discipline, and courtesy to the officials and gentry who were willing to interact with him at that time.

Extended information:

The guiding ideology of "Zhu Xi's Family Instructions":

"Zhu Xi's Family Instructions" talks about safety, hygiene, diligence, thrift, etc. from the perspective of running a family. Preparedness, food, housing, marriage, beauty, worshiping ancestors, reading, education, money and wine, discipline, caring, modesty, non-quarrels, making friends, self-examination, doing good, paying taxes, serving as an official, adapting, being peaceful, Problems in various aspects such as accumulation of virtue.

The core is to make people become a person who is upright, knowledgeable, rigorous in life, tolerant and kind, and has lofty ideals. This is also the consistent pursuit of Chinese culture. If we truly practice this, we will not only become a person with noble sentiments, but also build a happy family and then build a harmonious society.

The reason why "Zhu Xi's Family Instructions" has had such a great influence in China over the past three hundred years is that it not only embodies the Chinese people's ideals and pursuits of self-cultivation and family harmony, but more importantly, it uses a It is both easy to understand and pays attention to the form of language parallelism. If it is easy to understand, it will be easily accepted by the general public, and if the language is parallel, it will be catchy and easy to remember.

Parallel prose refers to the combination of two horses. Parallel prose is an article written in the form of couplets. Each sentence is opposite to each other. It pays attention to the contrast between level and oblique, and has sonorous and rhyme. It is the kind that best shows the unique charm of the Chinese language. Literary style was most prosperous during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and there were many excellent works in later generations.

Reference materials:

Baidu Encyclopedia—Zhu Xi’s maxims on family governance