Bamboo is a giant tropical grass with hollow wooden stems. In the West, when we consider the uses of bamboo, we think that 80’s garden furniture and bamboo shoots are eaten with our favorite Chinese takeout. In the East, bamboo is much more.
Bamboo is a very sustainable plant that grows at an alarming rate. It is one of the fastest growing plants on earth and has been recorded to grow as fast as 100 cm (1 meter or 39 inches) in a 24 hour period. Due to the speed at which it grows, it can be used and made available very quickly.
Bamboo is a versatile plant and has more than 1,400 species that have adapted to grow in all climates, thus adapting to the diversity of Asia.
Bamboo is a very useful product in Asia and has several different uses.
• Culinary: Bamboo feeds men and beasts throughout Asia, from India to Indonesia.
• It is well documented that the plant feeds endangered species such as the giant panda in China, and the same goes for other wild animals such as the golden bamboo lemur, which ingests giant bamboo shoots with the cyanide they contain.
• Bamboo can also feed domestic and cultivated animals; and humans in many different forms depending on where you prepare.
Bamboo sap can be fermented into a powerful alcoholic beverage.
• Construction: Bamboo not only provides the building materials for houses and structures like bridges (one made from bamboo in China dates back to 960 AD), but is also used to this day as a solid and reliable scaffold in cities as modern as Hong Kong. .
• Medicine: Bamboo provides a mystical cure for respiratory diseases in Ayurvedic cures and as a healing balm in Chinese medicine.
• Textiles: Bamboo is becoming increasingly popular as a textile. It is strong, smooth and durable and relatively easy to manufacture. This, along with its sustainability, ensures that bamboo is becoming more popular as a clothing option of choice in the west.
• Musical Instruments: The bamboo flute is made all over the world in its various forms, for cultures that depended, and to some extent still do, on creating their own entertainment. From Polynesia to the Philippines, bamboo instruments are carved and used to this day.
Other items made and uses of bamboo include ornaments, chopsticks, furniture, weapons, writing utensils, bicycles, and even in water desalination, to remove salt from seawater.
In China, bamboo is a sign of longevity, in India it is a sign of friendship. Many stories, myths and legends surround bamboo. One is that due to the rarity of bamboo flowering, this fact heralds an impending famine in China. In Japan, a bamboo forest will protect a shrine against evil and has a particular meaning in Vietnam, where home and soul are symbolized.
Therefore, bamboo is not only versatile and useful, it is also a symbol of Asia and important to the many different cultures that live there.