Last weekend I took this picture of Tony standing by some bamboo. This is the large bamboo that grows along the Li River. When you walk among these large plants, they sigh and creak. It took me a minute to realize the noises I was hearing came from the bamboo. I was also surprised to learn bamboo is classified as a grass.
After looking at the picture of Tony and the large bamboo, I started thinking about all the ways I have seen bamboo used in China. Here are a few....
The large species is used to make the bamboo rafts. Bamboo rafts are plentiful on the Li Jiang and Yu Long, the two rivers flowing through this area. Tourists love to travel the rivers on the rafts. But some country people rely on their rafts for transportation, and for some their rafts are the stages from which they work.
The boatmen on the chuan I take to cross the Li all use a steel tipped bamboo pole to push and shove the boats to and from the docks when the motors are silenced.

Farmers use strips of bamboo to delineate their plots.
Here is an arbor made of bamboo.
This bamboo fence is a bit more substantial than the one seen earlier.

Bamboo is often the material of the yoke country people employ to carry loads over their shoulder. I watched a woman swiftly float her bamboo yoke across the back of her neck from left shoulder to right as she walked with a small bounce made possible by slightly bent knees.
The main part of these buckets look to be made of bamboo.

Here is an example of the many styles of bamboo baskets common in everyday life.
The people in FuLi make fans. These slices of bamboo will be used in the making of the larger variety.

A bamboo pole outside a window is a favored way to dry clothing.
Amazingly, bamboo is also a favored material for scaffolding in China!

And we have rattan chairs in our apartment. Oops! Rattan is not bamboo. It's a palm. And I thought it was bamboo!