By Steven Crook

       Despite centuries of deforestation and decades of urbanization and industrialization, bamboo still grows wild throughout Taiwan.

       Immense groves of bamboo made a great impression on John Thomson when the Hong Kong-based photography pioneer visited Taiwan in 1871.

       The Briton wrote of one place in the southern part of the island: "Perhaps the bamboos were the most remarkable feature in the scene, for these plants here attain exceptional proportions... some of them (are) more than 100 feet high [thirty meters]... (one species) being reported to attain the enormous girth of two feet [sixty centimeters]."

       Until recently, this plant--actually a form of grass--underpinned a large part of Taiwan's economy. For anyone interested in the interaction between Taiwan's people and the island's vast bamboo resources, the Bamboo Art Museum in Nantou City is an excellent starting point.

       This exhibition hall, part of the Nantou County Cultural Center, encompasses much more than bamboo arts. Industrial, architectural and household uses are covered in detail.

       Explanations are in Chinese only, but photographs make clear the function of many items. These pictures also show how craftsmen fashioned bamboo (steaming and heating if they wanted to twist it), and some of the "big names" in the bamboo industry of yesteryear.

       Many of the finished items displayed in this museum will be familiar to older Taiwanese, but for those brought up in the plastics era, the range of products--and the versatility of bamboo--is astonishing.

       In addition to furniture, pushchairs and farmers' hats, there are cribs, panniers and baskets; cages for keeping pet birds and taking chickens to market; ladles; xylophones; yokes for water buffalo; plus sedan chairs in which brides-to-be were carried to their nuptials, and other decorative and ritual items.

       Until well into this century, bamboo was used to make waterwheels, dwellings, and farmers¡¦ sheds. One photograph shows bamboo scaffolding being used during the construction of a small dam during the Japanese colonial era.

       The museum also shows how aborigines made bows and fishing gear from bamboo, and how they trapped wild animals in pits lined with bamboo stakes.

       Sixty of the world's 1,200 species of bamboo can be found in Taiwan. Species vary massively in height and girth; some are more square than round. One of the specimens displayed in the Bamboo Art Museum has a trunk which, when cross-sectioned, is heart shaped.

       According to the museum, some of Taiwan's major bamboo forests can be found around Sun Moon Lake, Shanlinhsi, and Hsitou, all in Nantou County.

       Chushan, 20 kilometers from Nantou City, has long been famous for producing bamboo toys. Neiman in Kaohsiung County is well known for its woven wicker baskets, while Kangshan, a town between Tainan and Kaohsiung, has been a bamboo handicrafts center for two centuries. In Kaohsiung City, there are several bamboo-product stores on WuFu Fourth Road, between DaAn Street and the railway line which serves Kaohsiung Harbor.

       Stores selling bamboo products can be found throughout Taiwan, even in small towns. Despite the advent of plastics and other modern materials, bamboo products still have a place.

_Bamboo Art Museum
B1, Nantou County Cultural Center, 135, JianGuo Rd., Nantou City
(049) 223-1191
Hours: 9 am-5 pm (closed Monday)