Traditional Chinese literature makes the point that a gentleman should possess the qualities of bamboo. He should be upright, tenacious and perseverant. As ancient Chinese poet Bai Juyi puts it, a virtuous person should be hollow hearted like bamboo, with a soul empty of arrogance and prejudice and ready to accept anything good that may come his way.
Unlike general perception, there is not just one plant that falls under the bamboo category, but rather an entire diverse group of evergreen flowering plants in the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Whatever its exact taxonomy, bamboo is an amazing plant as it can grow up to a metre in length within just 24 hours. Its rapid growth rate makes it a solid candidate for green practices such as afforestation and climate change mitigation.
AN ALL-PURPOSE PLANT
Because of the bamboo stem’s strength and versatility, it is an important component in the life of people in regions of every continent except Europe and Antarctica. Fermented bamboo shoots are popular in cuisines across the Himalayas. In Indonesia, they are sliced thin and boiled with thick coconut milk and spices, while in China, bamboo hollows are used in the process of preparing tea. Bamboo is present in many kitchen tables of the world as several cultures employ it to manufacture chopsticks. Needless to say, the plant is used as raw material for houses, in the scaffoldings used to build them and the furniture made to equip them with. Bamboo is also good for fuel, water pipes, musical instruments, weapons, writing pens and surfaces and, lately, the production of clothesUnfortunately, bamboo fibres are too short to be transformed into yarn by a natural process and can only be used to make textiles through the employment of heavy chemicals that create rayon, a synthetic fibre. Even though retailers have labelled their products as “bamboo fabric” in order to make them look eco-friendly, national agencies such as the Canadian Competition Bureau and the US Fair Trade Commission have taken steps to put an end to the practice.. In fact, there is hardly a use for bamboo that the mind cannot imagine, even Edison’s first light bulb had a filament made of the magic plant.
BAMBOO AND BASKETRY
It goes without saying that a craft as old and adaptable as basket weaving would use bamboo as its prime material. Bamboo culms are harvested by cutting them off above the second node. They are then sawn into convenient lengths and split lengthwise-the finer the work, the thinner the strips. Typically, only the outer layers are used, with the toughest one of all being the shiny outer strip. Finely split, flexible seins are used in the weaving of almost anything, from lunch boxes to hats while thicker strips are good for bags that will have to carry much weight.
This carry-on bag has received several coats of lacquer to form a tough, shiny brown surface. Even though the colour is uniform, a decorative effect has been achieved on both sides by variations in the weaving pattern. The bag is bamboo in all its glory, with not only the sturdy body plaited by strips of the wondrous plant but also the handles bent out of several uninterrupted bamboo culms with the thick nodes still visible.