You might say our lives are imbued with it. No doubt, we spend plenty of time talking about bamboo, writing about bamboo, and thinking about bamboo. That’s when I start to think about what people think about bamboo.
And that can get really interesting, because people have been using and thinking about bamboo for at least 10,000 years, making it about 10 times older than the Magna Carta and 5 times older than the Bible, just to give a little perspective. Throughout Asia and beyond, people look to bamboo and admire it as kind of a miraculous plant.
Since time immemorial they have used bamboo to build houses for shelter, to build weapons for hunting and defense, and to eat its tender shoots for sustenance. It’s no mystery why primitive people would assign bamboo a sacred status, and revere it as a bona fide gift from the gods.īesides these life-giving properties, bamboo also contains a spiritual message that resonates deeply in the Far Eastern ethos. We’re all familiar with bamboo’s remarkable strength and hardness, qualities that inspire respect among both man and beast. But the real genius of bamboo lies in its pliability and resilience, its ability to flex and bend without breaking.
