[
    {
        "id": 213984,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 53,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "19\n\n# THE CRAFT OF THE BAMBOO SCAFFOLDER\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nAdmired by Taoists for its resilient beauty, tenacity and flexibility, bamboo symbolises endurance and the lifestyle of an upright, virtuous gentleman. It has rings marking, as it were, important events in a person's life. It is fast-growing and has great powers of survival. Not long after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945, bamboo on the devastated site was said to have sprouted new shoots.\n\nBamboo also, with classical, delicate leaves like painting on porcelain, bends but seldom breaks. The tender sprouts are a popular vegetable. With its unbounded usefulness it is employed to make waterpipes, poles for hanging out washing, mats, incense sticks, wide-brimmed hats to offer protection from the sun, shields used by riot police, chopsticks, pillows, divination blocks for temples, carved ornaments and countless other types of utensils. The elderly will have slept in bamboo cradles as children. Their coffins will be conveyed at their funerals by bearers using bamboo carrying poles.\n\nJames Stewart Lockhart, a senior Hong Kong civil servant who played a major part in the taking over of the New Territories by Britain from China at the end of the last century, described bamboo in a large, undated notebook, as follows:2\n\nTo start with, the bamboo has seven virtues of its very own: it is clean and unspotted in itself; a sheaf covers the stem as it pierces the dark earth, so the bamboo has protection from the world; being hollow it is symbolical...of a pure heart; it is strong and unyielding; the stem being divided into segments is orderly; the stalk is pure green without blemish; and is lastly eternal and enduring.\n\n3\n\nAlthough the Victorian naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace,3 described bamboo as one of nature's most valuable gifts, the main purpose of this paper is to look at bamboo as a material for scaffolding, together with the methods of training and the role of the bamboo scaffolder.\n\nA legendary sage named Yau Chao Shi is said to have lived 5,000",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213996,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 65,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "31\n\nCertainly, for heavy duty scaffolding laid out on a grid pattern, say when constructing a flyover and for other civil engineering work, metal scaffolding has advantages. Metal has already taken over in some cases from timber in areas such as hoardings around building sites and for site offices, when containers are sometimes utilised. Also, on large projects managed by the Government Housing Department, precast concrete units are used together with gondolas. This does away with much scaffolding.\n\nAlthough the change from bamboo scaffolding to metal has been much slower than many people expected over the past 40 years, especially with a limited number of trainee scaffolders entering the trade, the changing to metal can be expected to continue. Nevertheless, one can expect bamboo scaffolding, with its many advantages, to be in use for many years to come.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nThe author is grateful to Mr Albert Tong Yat Chu, Mr Cho Hon Chiu and scaffolding instructor Master Chor Keung, all of the Construction Industry Training Authority, for the information and photographs they supplied. The author is also grateful to Mr Jimmy C. M. Yuen, of the Occupational Safety and Health Council and to Mr S. L. Lam, Senior Architect of the Architectural Services Department, for their assistance.\n\nREFERENCES\n\n  \n    1.\n    TC Lai, Hasem Role. Philip Mao, Hings Chinese (Hong Kong, 1971), pp 13 and 14\n  \n  \n    2.\n    Shrona Anbe, Fhustle ontd Bamboo, the Life and Times of St. James Stewart Lockhart, Oxford University Press (1989), p. 58\n  \n  \n    3.\n    Alfred Russel Wallace, FRS (1823-1913) British naturalist, widely travelled, had many publications to his credit. See Chambers Biographical dictionary (Revised edition 1961)\n  \n  \n    4.\n    Ho So, The Craft of Chinese Scaffolding, Ho So Kee Construction and Scaffolding Co (Hong Kong, circa 1974), p 3\n  \n  \n    5.\n    Naomi Yin-yin Szeto, 'Bamboo Scaffolding”, of Hearts and Hands Hong Kong's Traditional Trades and Crafts, ed Joseph Ting, Urban Council Museum of History (Hong Kong, 1995), P 219\n  \n  \n    6.\n    Ho, loc cit\n  \n  \n    7.\n    Anthony Walker and Stephen M. Rowlinson, The Building of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Construction Association, Hong Kong University Press (1990), p 121-131",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    }
]