One of the things I love about Hong Kong is the use of bamboo rather than metal scaffolding for the construction of buildings. You see elaborate bamboo scaffolds towering into the sky.
Here's a story about this ancient craft, what's happening to it today, and one of the few women who practices it:
https://archive.is/VqeXK
Lots of great pictures!
"As a truckload of bamboo poles pulled into a narrow street, Daisy Pak stubbed out a cigarette, pulled a safety harness over her paint-streaked leggings and began blasting Prince from a Bluetooth speaker.
After maneuvering a loaded cart into an elevator, 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 latticework clinging to the outside of the building."
[....]
"The city is one of the last bastions of an art — and later industry — that was first depicted in scroll paintings from the Han dynasty around 2,000 years ago, and it has thrived in bamboo-rich regions in China. But in the past two decades, the rest of China pivoted toward metal amid an overproduction of steel.
Lattices of bamboo poles bound together by intricate knots regularly rise across the city to build and renovate apartment blocks and commercial skyscrapers that can be dozens of stories high.
Advocates of the material, including Ms. Pak, say it is lighter and cheaper than metal to transport and carry in Hong Kong’s tight urban spaces. Builders particularly favor the material when erecting platforms that support workers who patch up building exteriors and replace old pipes and window sills."