HK's bamboo scaffolding still hanging on, despite call to move to metal

As a truckload of bamboo poles pulled into a narrow street, Ms Daisy Pak pulled a safety harness over her paint-streaked leggings and began blasting Prince from a Bluetooth speaker.

- Tiffany May

HONG KONG -

After maneuvering a loaded cart into a lift, she opened a tiny window on the ninth floor and ducked out onto a narrow pipe, a bunch of zip ties sashaying behind her back like a bushy tail. She called for mid-length bamboo poles that she tied into a lattice-work clinging to the outside of the building.

Ms Pak, 31, is one of the few female bamboo scaffolding workers in Hong Kong, using an ancient Chinese practice that is synonymous with the city even as its use has faded elsewhere in China.

She turned to the industry for a fresh start in 2021, after a hard-scrabble upbringing and a fall into drug addiction and debt. There was a demand for skilled construction workers, it paid relatively well and she had a passion for the time-honored craft.

"It's so special, to build something completely all out of bamboo," she said.

Traditionally, workers learn their craft by shadowing one master with knowledge passed down through generations. But Ms Pak learnt any way she could, working with different bosses to broaden her skills and techniques, and overcoming taunts about her ability as a novice and her 1.55m stature.

While dismantling a scaffold, a colleague once tossed her poles to catch instead of passing them downwards. Contractors have tried to pay her less than she was promised. Her arms and legs were constantly bruised. But she carried on.