spring preparations -
the sound of bamboo
exploding
The farmers are beginning to clear the bamboo that has grown since last year. They cut it down, make small piles of it in the fields and burn it.
The sound of this poor bamboo cracking and popping --- pang panggg --- sounds like a constant firework explosion through my whole valley.
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MORE
Bamboo as a kigo, Bamboo art in Asia ...
Bamboo in my Valley
. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008
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Gabi, why don't they use that bamboo as a firewood in the next winter?
ReplyDeleteZhanna
There is plenty of firewood around in the woods, especially since the last typhoons which broke down so many trees.
And since bamboo tends to explode, you can not use it in a stove anyway.
The modern farmers use oil heaters.
Some farmers use bamboo to make special bamboo charcoal, which is highly prized. But ther is just SOOOOO much around here, the fastest is to burn it off.
Greetings from the backwoods of Japan!
GABI
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Maybe what they need is a marketing collective. Bamboo flooring is very popular in the USA now.
ReplyDeleteJohnye Strickland
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simply_haiku/message/21369
I suspect that the farmers in Gabi's valley consider the bamboo to be a weed which interferes with their ability to grow their cash crops.
ReplyDeleteIf you google "exploding bamboo," you will find that burning bamboo
explodes when air trapped between the nodules expands sufficiently.
In earlier eras in China, exploding bamboo was used in celebrations, particularly on New Year's Eve. The noise was thought to help drive away evil spirits.
"Bam! Boo!
"Bamboo is also said to drive away demons. In days gone by, when it
was thrown onto fires the noise made by the exploding internodes was thought to banish evil spirits and allow the gods to grant wishes and prayers.
In fact, the Malay word bamboo comes from the noise it makes. The bam is the dry bang of the internodes exploding when the air pressure builds up inside, and the escaping air goes boo!"
http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/jardin/en/chine/bambou/quotidien.htm
So "bamboo" is an onomatopoeic word.
"[In China] each family would explode more than ten stems of bamboo on New Year's Eve.
"Moreover, the custom of exploding bamboos continued long after the
introduction of gunpowder fire-crackers."
"Science and Civilizaton in China," by Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Larry
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simply_haiku/message/21371
Thank you for doing the googling, Larry.
ReplyDeletefallen cigarette -
the sound of the bamboo floor
exploding
- hortensia ;-)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simply_haiku/message/21373
When I once went to the mountains during the Christmas-New Year season, I noticed they used large bamboo as cannon, and artificial fertilizer as gunpowder! Don't know if they still do, but that made quite an impression (I was about 8 at the time).
ReplyDeletebamboo grove
a small bird hides
from a snake
:>) Ella
How very interestng, Ella san!
ReplyDeleteGABI