N50      Bamboo Artisan

There is a wide variety of bamboos in our country. And they are also plentiful  and grow well in most parts of our country. So people learned how to use bamboo from long ago. In fact it can be said to be the most basic material for people to use in our country.

    

  The most important use of bamboo is making houses, mostly in rural areas. Everything from the pole to the roof can be made with bamboo. And then people uses bamboo to make their everyday needs. Things that are needed to use in agriculture works, in kitchens, in markets and even toys for children. Tender shoots of bamboo are eaten as food called hmyit. There are stories about people who lost their way in thick forests and survive by eating bamboo shoots.

    

  So bamboo has a very important role in Myanmar people’s lives. Our forests are nearly gone now due to excessive logging. And our bamboo groves will be the next to be depleted as China is buying tender bamboo shoots and people are extracting them as much as they can, according to greediness and lack of rule of the law.  There are some people who are worried that bamboo will disappear and I have posted about it in my facebook page  written in Burmese. But I know it will not have much effect. When will our people come to their senses…..?

     

My actual aim in writing this piece is about one extraordinary use of bamboo and the man who uses it.

   

   He is not a layman but a monk. The relative who told me about him does not know his real name. They called him “  Sao Pu  “ only. She said she know him because he had made images of Lord Buddha in her village. Two of them and each about    13   feet in height.      

 To be continued…..