Hong Kong, the Bamboo Metropolis

Hong Kong is a city made by bamboo. It climbs our skyscrapers, builds our opera theatres, steams our dim sum and frames our festivals. It is deeply woven into Hong Kong’s culture — yet its story remains surprisingly little understood. That’s why we dedicated the third volume of our Zolima Culture Guide to bamboo. The Bamboo Metropolis is a 330-page book featuring original reporting, photography and illustrations that capture bamboo’s craft, culture and future. Below is an excerpt from the book. Pledge your support on Kickstarter now to get exclusive early-bird discounts and other deals!

Rocco Yim’s Bamboo Pavilion in Berlin, 2000. Photo courtesy Rocco Design Architects

Rocco Yim is the architect behind Hong Kong’s Central Government Offices, the Hong Kong Palace Museum, One Peking Road and many other local landmarks. His buildings are complex systems of glass, steel and concrete that take full advantage of Hong Kong’s multi-layered density. But when he was asked to design a temporary outdoor performance venue for an arts festival in Berlin, he didn’t use any of the modern materials that define so much of his architecture. He used bamboo.

The Bamboo Pavilion stood for several months in 2000 outside Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures), a swooping modernist structure that opened in 1957, as part of the Festival of Vision: Hong Kong – Berlin. “The pavilion was supposed to be sending a message,” explains Yim. He felt like bamboo was the best medium for what he wanted to say: “Because bamboo represents the essence of our character. Being resilient, being humble.”

It’s an association with profound roots in Chinese culture. Yim points to a saying, 虛懷若谷 (heoi1 waai4 joek6 guk1), that evokes the image of a hollow heart to imply someone is humble and open to new ideas; their heart is not empty, it’s waiting to be filled. Yim notes that bamboo is also historically associated with the word 君子 (gwan1 zi2), which means a gentleman or righteous person, and it is one of four plants — the others being plum blossoms, orchids and chrysanthemum — that were long said to embody traditional Confucian virtues. “It has pretty profound cultural implications,” he says.

But Yim wasn’t just drawn to the symbolism of bamboo. He relished the opportunity to work with it as a material. “It’s very versatile and very sustainable,” he says. “It can be easily erected, easily dismantled and easily transported to be reused. That’s why it’s used for bamboo theatres. It’s not just aesthetic — it’s based on very practical considerations.”

Yim ended up designing a 150-square-metre structure that looked as if a traditional bamboo theatre had made its debut in haute couture. Hundreds of bamboo poles were set at different angles, forming a light, skeletal structure that seemed to rise from an adjacent reflecting pool. The poles overlapped and crossed each other to create a woven, tensile effect, with the roof and walls defined less by solid surfaces than by the rhythm, spacing and triangulation of the bamboo frame.

And then it disappeared. The structure’s ephemerality was part of the concept. Just like the dozens of traditional bamboo theatres erected each year in Hong Kong to offer tribute to the celestial realm, Yim’s Bamboo Pavilion existed for a brief, buoyant moment of celebration before its structure was dismantled and shipped away. 

There couldn’t have been a better material to represent Hong Kong. Bamboo is one of the city’s building blocks. It wraps itself around buildings under renovation; it shelters Cantonese opera performers during celebrations; it works industriously in the kitchen. Bamboo reflects Hong Kong’s enduring traditions — a rustic intervention in a modern metropolis that reminds us of the natural essence of where Hong Kong has been built. It also embodies the ephemerality of Hong Kong’s urban life. The city is always changing; with its innate flexibility and ease of reuse, bamboo enables a constant reconfiguration of space. It’s durable but adaptable.

And yet, as with so many traditional aspects of Hong Kong life, bamboo risks being marginalised. As a result of recent policy changes — more on that later — bamboo scaffolding risks giving way to steel. Labour-intensive crafts that require decades of experience to perfect are being replaced by mass production that offer only a token nod to rich cultural histories. As is so often the case in Hong Kong, though, as bamboo’s place in the city is challenged, interest in it is surging. What was once taken for granted is now being celebrated. The question is, can bamboo and its traditions be cherished — while also continuing to evolve?

This volume sets out to answer that question. We will look at the bamboo scaffolding that underpins Hong Kong’s built environment and the skilled craftspeople who make it. We’ll explore the way bamboo is integral to so many Cantonese traditions, from lion dances to lanterns to the extraordinary bamboo theatres that rise in the most improbable locations, like on the edge of a remote island cliff. We’ll highlight the long history of bamboo in Chinese art and its renewed significance for contemporary artists in and around Hong Kong. We’ll introduce the role bamboo has played in Cantonese cuisine, both to make essential cooking vessels and as an ingredient in itself. And we will end our journey by looking forward to the future to see how bamboo will evolve, both as a contemporary material and as part of deeply-rooted traditions renewed for a new era. 

It’s a lot of ground to cover. But as you’ll soon find out, there is a whole universe of people dedicated to the arts, crafts, architecture and culture of bamboo. Welcome to the bamboo metropolis. 

More than just a grass

We should probably start by talking about bamboo in its most elemental form. Bambusoideae is a family of more than 1,462 species of grass, all known colloquially as bamboo. They thrive in warmer latitudes, but some native species can be found as far as 50 degrees north on the Russian peninsula of Sakhalin, and bamboo has been transplanted as an exotic species all over the world. The Hong Kong Herbarium — a 148-year-old plant archive maintained by the government — has recorded 67 species of bamboo growing in Hong Kong, including native varieties and exotic species imported by villagers many centuries ago. This abundance is reflected in many Hong Kong place names, like Wong Chuk Hang (黃竹坑 wong4 zuk1 haang1), which is named after groves of yellow bamboo that grow natively around Hong Kong.

Though bamboo is considered an invasive species in some parts of the world — in England, it is known for growing so aggressively it can punch holes through building walls — it serves a crucial ecological purpose in the parts of the world where it is native. Dense rhizomes bind soil, stabilise slopes and riverbanks, and slow runoff. Fast-growing culms — the main stalk of bamboo — store plenty of carbon. Leaf litter feeds fungi, microbes and insects. Native bamboo thickets are also habitats for birds and other wildlife, and can help disturbed land recover, laying the groundwork for future vegetation.

Bamboo also grows extremely quickly. Some species can shoot up 90 centimetres per day, which allows bamboo to be harvested as often as once a year, compared to the decades it takes to harvest most types of timber. That’s a big reason why bamboo has found so many uses in the places where it grows abundantly — including southern China. 

For centuries, bamboo has been grown and selectively cultivated for a variety of purposes. Bambusa textilis, known as weaver’s bamboo in English and 青皮竹 (cing1 pei4 zuk1) or green-skinned bamboo in Chinese, is prized for use in basketry. Two other species, Bambusa pervariabilis and Phyllostachys edulis — 篙竹 (gou1 zuk1) and 毛竹 (mou4 zuk1) — are used in particular for scaffolding. Grown in Guangdong and Guangxi, and harvested after three to five years, they are air-dried vertically for at least three months before being used.

Through the centuries, bamboo found its way into every aspect of life in southern China. It was used to make floor mats, farming tools, fishing rods and cages for farm animals. Most people slept on bamboo mats, whose natural cooling properties were prized in the sticky summer months. Bamboo was also integral to more ceremonial events. As early as the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), entertainers were building bamboo structures for their performances. That began a long history of bamboo theatres that could easily be assembled and disassembled — all the better to accompany troupes of performers who travelled between different towns and villages. 

When the British arrived in Hong Kong in 1841, they embraced the local bamboo vernacular as a fast and flexible way to build their new colony. Bamboo piers provided access to rocky shorelines. Structures known as matsheds — a simple bamboo frame with a palm-leaf roof — were used for military barracks, temporary housing and public markets. As late as the 1950s, matsheds could be seen on the shores of Repulse Bay, where they served as private beach huts for well-to-do beachgoers. 

Bamboo remained ubiquitous even as Hong Kong became a high-rise metropolis in the decades after World War II. That’s still true today. Take even a brief walk through the city’s streets and you’ll see bamboo used for construction scaffolding and flower plaques (花牌 faa1 paai2) celebrating an upcoming festival or the opening of a new business. Up to 40 bamboo theatres are erected around Hong Kong every year. Bamboo remains one of the few tangible connections to the past in a city that has razed and rebuilt so much of its built environment.

The essence of bamboo

Different bamboo traditions exist across Asia, so what makes our use of bamboo distinct? “Hong Kong’s bamboo craft is defined by its utilitarian grit,” says Penelope Luk, creative director of Crafts on Peel, a creative venue and charitable organisation that helps support craftsmanship. 

Luk works with bamboo artisans across Asia, including weavers, furniture makers and practitioners of Japanese takesaiku — the art of producing any number of fine products with bamboo. By contrast, what defines Hong Kong’s approach to bamboo is its straightforward functionality. “Our relationship with the material is inherently performative and architectural,” says Luk. “Nowhere else in Asia do you witness bamboo scaffolding scaling skyscrapers in a high-density metropolis. It is a quintessentially Hong Kong style defined by speed, adaptability — and a raw, functional beauty. It is a craft of the streets and the construction site just as much as it is a craft of the workshop.”

That’s what drew Wincy Kung to bamboo when she was a student at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design. In 2022, working on a spatial design project in one of her classes, she came up with the concept of the Bamboo Craft Festival: a temporary elevated bamboo platform where citizens can encounter the richness of bamboo craft through performances and workshops. The project earned her praise from her professors and coverage in international design media.

Now based in London, where she is working on a bamboo project related to that city’s Chinatown, Kung says bamboo is special because of the way it is woven through Hong Kong life. In particular, its flexibility, reuse and adaptability make bamboo feel inventive, communal and full of potential for the future, even if it is considered a traditional material. 

Today, Kung sees many other Hongkongers embracing bamboo for the same reasons she did. “What I see in Hong Kong is that more and more people are talking about preserving the culture of bamboo,” says Kung. That’s especially true after the devastating fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po in November 2025, which killed 168 people when it tore through seven tower blocks that were under construction and wrapped in bamboo scaffolding. International media focused on the potential role the scaffolding played, although local experts say it was unlikely to have contributed much to the fire. Regardless, it sparked fears of a crackdown on bamboo scaffolding.

This led to a surge of interest in anything related to bamboo scaffolding. When the once-in-a-decade Jiao Festival was held in Kam Tin in December 2025, it drew crowds from across the city. “Kam Tin raised a lot of awareness,” says Kung. During the festival and a subsequent carnival held the following month, the world’s largest bamboo theatre was erected, spanning 3,700 metres and made of 30,000 bamboo poles. Up to 6,000 people at a time packed into the theatre for Cantonese opera performances. 

Outside, even more bamboo structures were arranged around a courtyard in which an eclectic and multicultural mix of food hawkers fed a constant stream of visitors. Villagers brushed shoulders with trendy social media influencers from the city; thirtysomethings served craft cocktails next to grandmothers making dumplings the way they always had.

It felt like a turning point: old and young meeting in the same dusty field, surrounded by the clamour of opera and the exuberant colours of enormous flower plaques. But it also underlined an irony. Never has Hong Kong been more aware of its bamboo heritage, and never has it been more worried that heritage may disappear. It feels like the time is right to recognise bamboo for the fundamental part of Hong Kong life that it is — and the time is right to give it the opportunity to evolve. Bamboo endures because it is rooted, flexible and quick to grow; Hong Kong’s bamboo heritage deserves the same chance.