Bamboo: Spiritual Totem Deep in the Soul

Among the colorful bamboos in China, there are many economic bamboo species or rare bamboo species that are of high development value. The eastern part of China is the world's major bamboo producing area, with 4.43 million hectares of existing bamboo forests, accounting for 74% of the national bamboo forest area. Bamboo is one of the most important economic bamboo species in the world. Due to its excellent materials and wide use, it has become the bamboo with the longest operating history and the deepest development and utilization in China. The southwestern part of China is a concentrated distribution area of ​​bamboos and alpine bamboos in the world. In particular, there are more than 220 species of 29 genera in Yunnan Province. It is one of the origins and modern distribution centers of bamboo plants in the world. It is called “ The hometown of the world's bamboo." The giant bamboo in the southwest of Yunnan is the largest bamboo in the world. Its diameter can reach 30 cm, and the stalk height is more than 30 meters. It is called "the king of bamboo and the world's best".

The underground rhizome system of bamboo is developed, intertwined, leafy, and has strong water and soil conservation capacity, which plays a huge role in the maintenance of national ecological security. Bamboo is the habitat and food source of many rare wild animals such as wild elephants, especially the staple food of giant pandas.

Bamboo is extremely versatile. It is a production and life partner, edible and health care products, construction and papermaking materials, weaving and process materials, ecological and ornamental plants. It has thousands of uses in the production and life of our people, including industrial and agricultural production. , transportation, fishing, hunting, sericulture, clothing, food, housing and other fields.

The ancestors of ethnic minorities in southern China have spread the habit of planting bamboo with bamboo, laying bamboo mats, wearing bamboo rafts, burning bamboo, eating bamboo shoots, living bamboo houses, using bamboo chopsticks, building bridges with bamboo, and crossing the river to cut bamboo. Bamboo cages for flood control, bamboo arrows for hunting, bamboo for fishing, and barrels, baskets, tables, stools and other utensils in life are all made of bamboo, and even bamboo smoke hooks are used for smoking. "The depths of the bamboo forest are my home, bamboo doors and bamboo walls and bamboo fences; bamboo bamboo bowls and bamboo wines, distant guests welcoming home" is a true portrayal of Zhuxiang life.

Bamboo is a natural renewable green resource, and the development of modern science and technology continues to open up the use of bamboo. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Professor Zhang Qisheng of Nanjing Forestry University took the lead in proposing the concept of industrial utilization of bamboo with bamboo as the core and bamboo winch, invented the production technology of bamboo plywood, and pioneered the industrial utilization of bamboo. . Subsequently, bamboo flooring, bamboo furniture panels and bamboo wood-based panels for various engineering structures were developed in various places. The production scale has grown rapidly and the processing technology has matured.

After entering the 21st century, scientists have successfully developed bamboo-wound pressure pipes to maximize the tensile strength and flexibility of bamboo. It has been applied in water conservancy, agricultural irrigation and urban pipe networks. China's bamboo products have formed more than 100 series of nearly 10,000 kinds of products, which are used in more than 10 fields such as construction, decoration, furniture, paper, packaging, transportation, medicine, food, textile and chemical industry. In 2016, the national bamboo industry's total output value reached 210.9 billion yuan, accounting for more than 60% of the world's exports, becoming the world's largest exporter of bamboo products.