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竹の子 BAMBOO SHOOTS
There are many types of bamboo and the variety in these pictures is obviously the giant variety. Bamboo is being used for many purposes.
These days one doesn’t see much bamboo on building sites as aluminium is used more widely. However, the Greenies have been saying for quite a while that bamboo is stronger, renewable and doesn’t create “aluminium poisoning” at any stages. We’ll leave it for you to decide. It is still largely used in the building industry in other Asian countries, as the pictures above show, but not so much in Japan anymore.
Bamboo can be processed and it can be used particularly in clothing, flooring, furniture, wall panelling. In clothing it is regarded as strong, cheap, and healthy as the fibres allow “breathing” and “ventilation”, unlike a fair number of artificial fibres that cause perspiration.
Bamboo can also be eaten. The young shoots are delicious, while the older trunks are not suitable for consumption, unless one is particularly desperate.
This is what prepared cleaned bamboo shoots look like. When cut further into smaller strips, they can be added to みそしる, miso soup, or they can be added to cooked rice.
Why not let someone else do the work and get it in a jar?
Bamboo shoots are such a part of Japanese cooking, and this is the case for all Asian cooking. The bamboo shoots have such a positive feeling-image that it is used as a symbol in other situations as well. For instance, little cookies, even those covered with chocolate or filled with strawberry flavour, are still named , たけのこ, or bamboo shoots. It is only the shape that reminds people of the shoots.
What about this safety barrier? We are sure that there is a Post Box somewhere in Japan in the shape of a bamboo shoot. If not, it will be made soon! What about this play ground? Any child would want to slide down this shoot, wouldn’t they/you?!
Most of all, in Japan the word たけのこ has become associated with Young People in Yoyogi Park, near the Meiji Shrine in Harajuku, Tokyo.
These young people are vigourous, enthusiastic, quite harmless and most entertaining: think of it as Walking Wearable Art. Here are some pictures that will give you the idea and amuse you:
原宿 竹下通り
たけしたどおり
takeshitadoori
These are the shops on Takeshita Avenue in Harajuku.Of course, Takeshita 竹下 means “Under the bamboo”.
Not a bamboo shoot in sight!
These are the real Bamboo Shoots:
weird wonderful wearable art
着られる アート
きられる アート
kirareru aato
wearable art
Lami Japan 
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