Bamboo

竹 take

Bamboo

Straight, strong and green all year, bamboo stands for integrity, resilience and growth; one of the Three Friends of Winter.

Chinese 'Three Friends of Winter' (from the Tang–Song dynasties); Japanese New Year customs

Bamboo stays green through winter, so Chinese poets and painters grouped it with pine and plum as the 'Three Friends of Winter', an ideal of the scholar who stays upright in hard times; the group became popular in Song painting. In Japan the trio became shōchikubai, a celebratory set and also a three-tier ranking (pine, bamboo, plum). Bamboo is now the main part of the kadomatsu placed at gates for the New Year.

Bamboo is used in all seasons; with sparrows or snow it has its own seasonal variants.

Technique catalog · draft for review

Every way to wrap, carry and wear a furoshiki.

The furoshiki.com archive, sliced into annotated steps with plain directions, plus techniques found in research.