Page 33 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 26

An embroidered ball

Bamboo

zhu

The bamboo is one of China’s most important natural products. It provides building
material for houses and scaffolding, and raw material for paper. There is a saying: ‘May
his name be preserved on bamboo and silk’ – a reference to the handle of the
calligrapher’s brush and to the brownish paper which is made from bamboo. Bamboo
shoots are a delicacy, wine is spiced with bamboo leaves, bamboo discs were

sometimes used for money, and the Chinese counterpart of the hobby horse has always
been made from bamboo (zhuma): it symbolises youth. In addition to its practical uses,
the bamboo is a motif in many Chinese poems. Su Dong-po writes, ‘One can manage
without eating flesh; but one cannot manage without the bamboo’; and Bo Ju-yi,
‘Everyone has worries in time of drought: for my part, when it is dry, I am anxious about
pine trees and bamboos.’
The leaves of the bamboo droop because its inside (its ‘heart’) is empty. But an empty
heart is equivalent to modesty, so the bamboo symbolises this virtue. On the other hand,
the bamboo is evergreen and immutable, and hence a symbol of old age – in addition, it is
gaunt like an old man. When the wind blows, the bamboo bends ‘in laughter’; and the
character for ‘bamboo’ looks very much like an abbreviation of the character for ‘to
laugh’. An underlay of bamboo which is put under the legs in bed during hot weather, in
order to keep them cool, is called ‘bamboo-wife’ (zhu-fu-ren).