|

|
Nature's Miracle Material
The NOVA team of experts in "China Bridge" lashed together the
wooden structure of their Rainbow Bridge using rope woven with
strips of bamboo. Bamboo rope may come as a surprise to many
Westerners, but it shouldn't, as people throughout history
have used this versatile grass in perhaps more ways than they
have used any other plant in the world.
 The world has found almost endless uses for
bamboo—including musical instruments.
|
|
The Chinese in particular have put it to a wide variety of
uses. In the Chinese countryside, a person's life, from cradle
to grave, can be measured with bamboo. Until recently, doctors
often cut umbilical cords with a finely sharpened bamboo
knife. Today, Chinese parents rock infants in bamboo cradles,
and children play with bamboo toys or blow bamboo flutes. As
adults, peasants shape the ground with bamboo tools and, in
the spring, may enjoy a feast of bamboo shoots. When one's
journey is over, relatives carry the deceased to the grave on
a bamboo bier.
"Bamboo can do so much for farmers' daily needs, and all they
need to make it work for them is a knife or a machete," says
Dr. Jules Janssen, a Dutch civil engineer who has researched
bamboo for a quarter century and also lent his expertise to
NOVA for "China Bridge."
A Striking Versatility
Bamboo is many things to many millions of people. Its tensile
strength has been compared to steel, and larger varieties have
the density of a hardwood. Yet early in their lives, other
varieties serve as food for people and certain animals. The
plant's colors run from white to a glossy black, though most
common varieties are green. Some types grow only an inch or so
high; others tower to heights of 120 feet with stalks a foot
in diameter.
|
 The bamboo flute's distinctive sound has been heard
all over the world.
|
Its diversity of attributes has led to bamboo's diversity of
uses. "It sounds like a joke, but the list of things bamboo is
not used for is shorter than the list of things it is used
for," says Janssen, who then offers an almost
stream-of-consciousness list of bamboo products. "It's used
for firewood, fences for the cattle, heating fuel, a house's
walls and roof. Out of it you can make boats, rafts,
furniture, veneer, parquet flooring, paper. And then there's
the bamboo flute, which you can find practically everywhere in
the world." He pauses and then asks, "Is that enough?"
Janssen's point is well-made. The Environmental Bamboo
Foundation has printed a bamboo alphabet that lists numerous
bamboo uses under each letter. The "A" entry includes the
words aphrodisiac, acupuncture needles, awnings, and more; "B"
lists bagpipes, books, and brooms; the sole "E" entry is egg
cups. Even the rarest initial letters, such as "V" (valiha, a
musical instrument from Madagascar), "X" (xylophones), and "Z"
(zithers), are covered by bamboo. The only letter that lacks
an entry is "Q," and one expects it has more to do with our
linguistic limitations than the shortcomings of bamboo.
 The speed of bamboo growth puts other plants to
shame.
|
|
About 1,000 species of bamboo grow throughout the world.
Actually a grass, the plant exists naturally on every
continent except Antarctica. It has found a niche for itself
in sea-level tropics and on 13,000-foot mountain slopes. One
of bamboo's less obvious gifts is its root system, which is
more highly developed than it is in most other plants and
provides strong protection against riverbank erosion, Janssen
notes.
With a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes, the various
bamboo species share just one common characteristic: the woody
and often strong stalk, called a culm. What makes the culm so
extraordinary is its combination of lightness and strength.
The lightness comes from its hollow center, while its
remarkable strength arises from its walled septa, or nodes,
which reinforce the stalk, giving it redundant support over
its entire length.
Continue: Bamboo can outgrow any other plant in the
world.
NOVA Builds a Rainbow Bridge
|
Bridge the Gap
|
Nature's Miracle Material
China's Age of Invention
|
Resources
|
Transcript
Medieval Siege
|
Pharaoh's Obelisk
| Easter Island |
Roman Bath | China
Bridge |
Site Map
Editor's Picks
|
Previous Sites
|
Join Us/E-mail
|
TV/Web Schedule
About NOVA |
Teachers |
Site Map |
Shop |
Jobs |
Search |
To print
PBS Online |
NOVA Online |
WGBH
©
| Updated November 2000
|
|
|