Aside from silky milk tea, piping hot dim sum, and red taxis, another icon of Hong Kong is its sky-high buildings clad in bamboo scaffolding!

Hong Kong remains one of the last places on earth that uses bamboo scaffolding in construction. Skilled scaffolders aka “spiders” would fearlessly overcome soaring heights to fasten lattices of bamboo poles together with nylon straps, employing centuries-old techniques.

Hong Kong favours bamboo over metal for scaffolding due to its lightweight, availability, and higher tensile strength.

However, this ancient art of bamboo scaffolding, one of Hong Kong’s many precious forms of intangible cultural heritage, is at risk of being phased out. The city’s government announced plans to encourage more use of metal scaffolds instead due to safety concerns, pointing out that bamboo catches fire easily and tends to wear down over time.

Yet, without these flexible yet sturdy bamboo lattices, Hong Kong’s skyline today might have looked very different.