Bamboo Is Innocent

A devastating fire in Hong Kong

0:00This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. When reporter Julie Blusset got on a plane to Hong Kong in November of last year, she thought she was going to cover the aftermath of a disaster. Julie is a China correspondent for the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. I'd seen the images on the news the evening before. Seven huge residential towers in the Tai Po neighborhood of Hong Kong, completely engulfed in flames. By the time I landed, 20 hours had passed.

0:30I figured the fire would be out, and I'd be documenting the wreckage, talking to survivors. But that's not what she found. When I got there, the buildings, all part of this complex called Wang Fuk Court, were still burning. Not smoldering, but burning. Seven towers, 32 stories each, and still on fire. Still billowing smoke. There's, I guess there's one or two towers that are completely blackened, and then there's a few that are just filled with smoke.

1:03It's kind of insane. And every so often, you'd hear it before you saw it. These explosions or banging sounds coming from somewhere deep inside the towers. I was talking about it with my friend Jones. She was helping me translate from Cantonese that day. Uh, they suspect that it is a bathroom or kitchen. Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe guests? And then the flame is quite serious. Getting serious right now. Julie was standing in a park just across the way from the burning complex.

1:35And all around her were people from the neighborhood. There was this 73-year-old guy called Ma Ming, a local, who'd been at the park when the fire broke out the day before. He'd seen it start. He told me the flames just raced up those 32 floors. And within 20 minutes, the firefighters had completely lost control. And I asked him, because this was already the narrative that was forming in the news. I'd read it on my phone on the way to the airport that morning.

2:08I asked him, was it the bamboo? The eight towers at Taipo had been undergoing renovation. And all seven that were on fire were wrapped from top to bottom in bamboo scaffolding. In the immediate wake of the inferno, bamboo was the most obvious culprit. Breaking news from Hong Kong, where a massive fire has engulfed a housing complex. Bamboo scaffolding fixed on the outside of the towers is fueling the blaze. The fire spread quickly due to bamboo scaffolding and highly flammable...

2:41The housing complex was covered in scaffolding made from bamboo, which appears to have helped the fire spread. Combustible scaffolding should be prohibited, period. I mean, we shouldn't use bamboo. This is an unnecessary risk for a catastrophic fire.

2:58But Ma was adamant in his answer. He said, no, it wasn't because of the bamboo that the fire spread so quickly.

3:07He insisted it was because of the plastic netting that had been draped around the bamboo. That's what caught. This time I think they are nylon, the polyester fabrics, so that makes the fire quickly spread out. For someone who isn't from Hong Kong, our discussion at that moment might have appeared strange, maybe even insensitive. The buildings were still burning behind us. Nearly 300 people were still unaccounted for. And here we were distinguishing between construction materials.

3:41Only that distinction, bamboo versus netting, would turn out to matter enormously. Because bamboo scaffolding is a tradition that has long helped set this city apart from the Chinese mainland. But now the fire at Wong Fook Court might just spell the end of bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong.

The history and mechanics of bamboo

3:58If you've ever seen any images of Hong Kong, you've seen its bamboo. It's just as iconic as Hong Kong's ferries, dim sum restaurants, skyscrapers, and neon signs. The omnipresent use of bamboo scaffolding for construction or renovation jobs. In Hong Kong, entire skyscrapers are often fully encased in bamboo scaffolding. On any given day, countless stalks of bamboo cover dozens of glass office buildings from top to bottom,

4:28enveloping the city's skyline like a veil. It's really hard to overstate how much bamboo is part of Hong Kong's image and identity. In tourist shops, I even found these little plastic miniatures of Hong Kong buildings, and they all included bamboo scaffolding. And for those who haven't had the chance to go to Hong Kong, there's always this vital action scene in Rush Hour 2 with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

4:58The scene hinges on a stunt in which Chan and Tucker maneuver across the bamboo scaffolding on the side of a building. And they end up hanging from this one really tall piece of bamboo, which just bends and bends and bends. Don't worry. Chinese bamboo is very strong.

5:16Ah! You shoot me! I'm sure! Until finally, it breaks. Ah! Ah!

5:25Because, you know, it's a comedy. You won't see anywhere near this much bamboo in the rest of China. Today, on China's mainland, including where I live in Beijing, scaffolding is made out of metal, not bamboo. Other places in China might have their own vernacular building styles, but only in Hong Kong is the site of construction and maintenance itself part of the vernacular identity. Perhaps no city on Earth more proudly displays its own upkeep. Therefore, I say the bamboo scaffold is just like grow together with Hong Kong.

6:01This is Lo, an engineer with over 30 years of experience in Hong Kong's construction industry. He asked me not to use his full name. And Lo thinks the tradition of bamboo scaffolding hasn't survived here simply by accident. Hong Kong, he says, was, by necessity, built with bamboo. Hong Kong is a place where we don't have much flat land. There's quite a lot of mountains, hills, and you can see Hong Kong Island. Most of the ground is sloping. With a premium on usable land, Hong Kong is extraordinarily dense.

6:35Its streets are narrow, its alleys narrower. Construction and repair work in these spaces is notoriously tricky, requiring constant adaptation. Therefore, we try to use some, what can I describe, some very flexible and easy to mobilize solution for the problem. This is all the benefit of bamboo scaffold.

7:03Bamboo is far lighter than steel. It's even lighter than wood. It's actually a grass, so it can be easily carried and assembled by hand. And there's no standard size. You can quickly cut it down to suit whatever space it needs to fit. The result is that this ancient construction material is still useful, maybe even perfect, for modern, crowded Hong Kong. There's a line from a bamboo scaffolding master that sums it up perfectly. Wherever a person fits, a bamboo scaffold fits. And for something as straight as bamboo, you'd be surprised how many shapes can be made out of it.

7:38Walk around Hong Kong, and you'll see lopsided bamboo pyramids surrounding movie marquees, and long bamboo tendrils snaking around windows. And then there's this. Bamboo scaffolding doesn't need to be anchored to the ground, or descend from the roof of a structure with a crane. Instead, the 65th floor of an office building is often the starting place for a typical bamboo platform. Most of the time, it just shoots straight out of the window, with nothing but air underneath it. From there, two scaffolders, working alone, can quickly build the bamboo out in any shape and direction that's required for the job.

8:13All without ever for a second touching the ground or blocking traffic.

8:18Heavy metal scaffolding, by contrast, usually needs to be built from the ground up. It comes in fixed tube lengths and requires clamps, platforms, and standardized components. On a flat surface, in an open space, it's fast and it's cheap. But in a narrow alley, on a curved facade, on the side of a 64-story tower on a Hong Kong hillside, steel becomes slow and expensive. And bamboo scaffolding isn't just practical for patching up a building or making repairs.

8:48It's often the way skyscrapers are constructed in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is famous for its daring and surreal architecture. And Lo believes that's because bamboo has made it easier for construction firms here to pursue ambitious designs more often. He says bamboo scaffolding is so easy to manipulate that it can be molded alongside any shape an architect requires. Just like a tailor, because every time the angle of the scaffold perfectly matches with the building shape. And if no choice, we have to use metal scaffold, then maybe we need to use one or two months or more time for preparations.

9:28Because everything is heavy by three or four times or more. Bamboo scaffolders usually require far less prep. Instead, most of the time, they just show up, eyeball the situation, and get to work.

Building a scaffold in a narrow alley

9:41Hey, good morning. Good morning. Almost in place. On a recent hot, humid day in Hong Kong, I watched one such scene play out from a tiny alley in the Prince Edward neighborhood, next to two dim sum restaurants, the Jade and the Pearl. The alley couldn't have been more than three meters wide, flanked on both sides by tall residential buildings. Two bamboo scaffolders, Timmy So and his father, So-Ti-Fai, were gathering materials from their truck.

10:11Timmy briefed me on the job. So that one will be the building. We're working at the orange color one. Ah. But we can walk around to see all the pipes where they are. And we're working at the 14th floor. Okay. The assignment that day was to build a bamboo balcony that could reach an air conditioning unit on the side of one of the buildings. This is probably the single most common job scaffolders are asked to do here. Modern Hong Kong is nothing without its air conditioning. But Hong Kong's A.C. units are not the dinky one-off window units that you see in a lot of American apartments.

10:46They're usually located away from windows in hard-to-reach places, crammed alongside a complicated maze of pipes and fixtures for plumbing, electricity, internet, everything. And this building was no different. But Timmy assured me they'd make quick work of it. You already came here before, or is that what's happening now? No, it's happening now. This is the first time I've been here. All their equipment seemed custom-made for Hong Kong. They had this tiny cart designed to slot exactly inside a standard Hong Kong elevator, with just enough space on the side for two scaffolders.

11:20And on top of it, all their gear, alongside bundles of bamboo. Ooh, oh, it fits perfectly. Yes, everything is designed by ourselves, so it fits most of the environment in Hong Kong. You just, like, asked someone to make it precisely according to your own dimensions. Actually, my father made it by himself, so it's all unique design. The elevator only went to the 13th floor. They carried their supplies to the next floor themselves.

11:52No problem.

11:54They picked up the bamboo poles and walked up the stairs as if they weighed nothing. Which, compared to steel, they basically do. In which surely counts as one of the great disappointments of my life, safety regulations prohibited me from going out onto the scaffolding with them. So, I went back down, to gawk at them from the alley. We stayed in touch by walkie-talkie. Let me see if I can... Uh, maybe you need... Oh, yeah, there you are! I watched as Timmy, strapped into a harness, stepped out of a tiny window into the air,

12:26and balanced himself on a small length of pipe, about 45 meters above me. He drilled some metal brackets into the wall, and then his father started handing him bamboo poles through the window, one by one. He laid them across the brackets, tied them up, and built a little platform for himself to stand on. The poles were light enough that he could just grab and hold them with one hand. Not exactly something you could do with steel. So, every time when I receive the materials from the window, I have to treat the materials.

12:57Then my partner can fill it, and he'll release the materials from his hand. If he cannot fill it, he shouldn't release the materials. So, we... That's how we communicate, and we never drop anything. Within a few minutes, Timmy was already well on his way to making what some in the industry call a birdcage, a sort of safe enclosure for a repairman to work in. Later, Timmy would tell me this was a tougher job than he thought. Lots of unexpected angles and distances. But from where I was standing, you wouldn't know it.

13:30His father just kept handing him the bamboo poles at a steady rate. There's number six, and his father's already extending the seventh one while he's lashing the six into place. Probably takes no longer than ten seconds to connect them. There's some passers-by who are wondering what we're so fascinated by. As I watched Timmy and his father build out the birdcage, the alley continued to go about his business.

14:01Some cleaners came and went. An employee from one of the dim sum restaurants took out some trash. Another was moving around styrofoam boxes. And maybe that was the best part. The way the bamboo let everyone else's lives just go on. Steel scaffolding for this job would have likely had to start from the ground floor, blocking half of this narrow alley. But this scaffold never got anywhere near the ground. It stayed well out of the way of the hustle and bustle below. Ninety minutes later, the cage was finished.

14:32Just another piece of bamboo scaffolding, floating above one of the city's busiest neighborhoods. Scenes like this are so commonplace that residents barely notice. But look up from nearly any street corner, and more likely than not, you can see bamboo scaffolders making the nearly impossible look easy. It's why bamboo still accounts for roughly 80% of all scaffolding in Hong Kong. But just because bamboo is easy to work with, doesn't mean it's easy to learn. That's bamboo's one honest disadvantage compared to metal.

15:05A bamboo master requires years of apprenticeship. The craft has been passed down father to son, job by job. I think it's the easiest way to explain is like a teacher. But in old days, when they learn from teacher, they live together. They even help to cook. They help to wash. So everything.

15:28Timmy told me he's a third-generation scaffolder. His family's company builds bamboo scaffolding all around town. He's also the assistant head of a builder's association. He said the work still challenges him, 12 years into the job, working together with his dad. And at work, I'll call him Sifu. Master. Master, yes. Are you a master already? Yes, I'm also a master. But on the Chinese mainland, where bamboo scaffolding was never as popular, this knowledge has almost entirely disappeared.

16:01It was mostly replaced by metal decades ago. And in 2022, it was banned nationwide for all housing and municipal engineering. Hong Kong is one of the last places on Earth where bamboo scaffolding survives as a living practice. Not as a heritage performance, but as the actual way buildings get built.

Government phase-out and public defense

16:21But then came the fire. And the world watched as the towers in Taipo burned, covered in bamboo. The search continues for survivors, and those are horrifying pictures. And police say there are still people trapped inside the building. There are glimmers of torch lights in some floors. And the bamboo scaffolding on one of the 31-storey tower blocks looks to have caught fire and is causing the flames to spread. Being a Hong Konger, it's one of the most horrific things that I have ever—words can't even describe it.

16:59When we come back, the possible end of bamboo scaffolding and what it means for Hong Kong. We're back with reporter Julie Blusset. The same day I flew in from Beijing to cover the fire at Wang Fuuk Court, Timmy So was called in for an emergency meeting at Hong Kong's Development Bureau. It had only been one day since the start of the fire. And I was quite shocked that it comes so fast because the fire is not under control yet.

17:37It's just still at the second day of the fire. And it's a little bit shocked. A few months before, Hong Kong's government, under pressure from Beijing, had already begun making local construction companies increase their use of metal scaffolding. The government had cited safety concerns, although some suspected it was a way for Beijing to bring in more mainland construction workers who are trained on metal. So, going into the meeting, Timmy was bracing himself.

18:07And once I arrived at the meeting place, there is an agenda on the table. And the agenda title is Roadmap on Adoption of Scaffolding. It was a timetable drafted by the Development Bureau for the complete phase-out of bamboo scaffolding at all construction sites in Hong Kong. The official rationale was straightforward. Metal scaffolding is more fire-resistant than bamboo. The Bureau asked the Hong Kong construction industry to agree to the accelerated phase-out of bamboo.

18:42It was time, they said, to move on. Timmy still spoke up. He resisted the ban, but only briefly. It was already clear that more than a hundred people had died in the fire. And so, he says, resistance felt both pointless and almost inappropriate. So, everyone, they forgot how bamboo scaffolding built Hong Kong. And at that time, I was very disappointed, very hopeless.

19:17Shortly after that, the phase-out was made public by the Hong Kong government. Bamboo scaffolding would be replaced with metal. Hong Kong's roughly 3,500 bamboo scaffolders would be incentivized to retrain to work with steel. But almost immediately, something unexpected happened. The public pushed back. People began posting videos online, trying and failing to set bamboo alight. Bamboo has a very high ignition point of at least 260 degrees Celsius, and it is also very difficult to burn.

19:57No one was saying that the bamboo scaffolding hadn't caught fire along with everything else in Taipo. It had. The question was whether the scaffolding was what caused the fire to spread. Bamboo's defenders said, no, the bamboo only burned after the flames had already spread. Not before. It wasn't the reason the fire got so bad. Instagram accounts ran posts claiming, bamboo is innocent. And at a makeshift memorial that sprung up near the site of the fire, right next to notes expressing grief for the victims,

20:28I saw messages saying, don't blame the bamboo. This is actually one of the things that got me so interested in this story in the first place. Like, why did Hong Kongers rush to defend bamboo so fiercely? I put the question to Lo, the Hong Kong engineer. I told him about Ma Meng, the man who defended the bamboo, even as the towers were still burning in front of us. People were so adamant about it, like, no, it's not the bamboo. When the fire is even still happening...

20:59The bamboo is still burning at the same time. Why do the Hong Kong people care so much? Why? Why do people respond like that?

21:11Can I say, the people you met, they're smart.

21:22They're smart. They're smart. Yeah, because we lived with the bamboo for so many years, right? From our child age, we see everywhere there's bamboo. We lived with it. The tradition of bamboo scaffolding, that still means something to Hong Kongers. But also, they weren't just defending a construction material for the sake of convention. 168 people died in this fire and thousands lost their homes. People were sad and upset, and Lo stressed to me how eager he and others were to find out

21:54what really went wrong. But instead, it felt like the government was using bamboo as a scapegoat, a way to declare the case closed, instead of looking for the real culprit. Therefore, we're angry about this, and we realize that this is useless, because the problem is still there. And a similar thing may be happening again, right? We didn't learn the lesson. But for many Hong Kongers, the bamboo ban also felt like part of a pattern that they'd come to recognize, one that began in 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China by the

22:30United Kingdom. Many residents worried about what would happen to their local democratic government under Chinese rule. So Beijing made a promise. One country, two systems. Yes, Hong Kong would be part of China, but it would keep its own courts, civil liberties, and limited autonomy for 50 years. But one country, two systems didn't last long. Since 2021, Hong Kong's government has consisted only of what Beijing calls patriots, candidates approved by the central government.

23:00Today, it's widely understood that the city administrators will pretty much do Beijing's bidding. And increasingly, Hong Kongers suspect that what Beijing wants is to bring the city's cultural identity more in line with mainland China, by taking away those things that have long made Hong Kong unique. For instance, Lo told me how some historic buildings, buildings that reminded people of the old Hong Kong, have gotten demolished in recent years, instead of preserved. And the city's iconic neon signs, those dense, overlapping cascades of Chinese characters

23:34that lit up Hong Kong's streets for decades, Beijing had almost all of those taken down. Also, they said, for safety concerns. We don't know why, but it seems to us that those unique things of Hong Kong is being fade out, right? Just like the bamboo scaffold. Seems to us that we are moving like a normal mainland city. Or, I don't know, it's just a feeling.

24:06But just saying these things outright, at least in public, has become too risky for most people. The national security law, which passed in 2020, has made any government criticism a potential crime. After the fire, one 24-year-old student was arrested for calling for an independent investigation. A political commentator in his 70s was arrested for criticizing the government's response online. The result is that most people in Hong Kong err on the side of keeping their thoughts private, or at least anonymous. Lo, for example, maintains an Instagram account he uses to say what he really thinks about the

24:40building industry in Hong Kong. He keeps it under a pseudonym. And if I need to speech freely, then it would be sensitive. Yeah. Yeah, it would be sensitive. At this point, Lo dropped his voice. This kind of speech, he whispered to me, it's very dangerous in Hong Kong. But it seems that the government is not working for us. They are working for Beijing. But at least so far, even if they're not allowed to criticize the government or blame it for

25:14the fire, Hong Kongers have not yet been punished for simply defending bamboo scaffolding. Which means, these days, the discussion of bamboo can also function as a kind of coded form of political speech, a way of saying things that can't be said out loud.

Music, culture, and the future of bamboo

25:35Five days after the fire started, I came across this group of young people who were filming a music video. A 26-year-old rapper named Chun Geet K, dressed head to toe in black, rapping directly into the camera. I don't speak Cantonese, so I couldn't make out much. Until I caught the word bamboo.

26:04Turned out, Chun Sang was about bamboo. Bamboo is my name, stubborn by nature, it goes. Bamboo is my name, stronger than you think. The week before, shortly after the fire broke out, Chun had rushed to Taipo to help out. He delivered water and food to the firefighters. And now, he said, he wanted to use his music to help the bamboo as well. Because of the fires, we all realized that some people blame the bamboo. Yeah. So I made this song happen.

26:35Because I think we all know it's not because of the bamboo. Yes. It's just, and it's just about some, I can't say too much, you know, because of the law. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Can I quote you saying, I can't say too much because of the law? Or I've read it in that. Yes, you can. Yeah? I think, yes. Okay. I think, yes. Yeah. Chun was recording the music video at the edge of Hong Kong, in the village of Seutau. The village was holding a festival that only happens every 10 years.

27:08For the festival, they build a temporary bamboo theater, 6,000 seats, Cantonese opera, ceremonies that last for days. It stands for a few weeks, then it comes down. When Julie visited, it was still under construction. It was extraordinary. Just this vast bamboo skeleton completely open to the sky. You could walk through it, through these corridors of bamboo poles, the size of a huge circus tent about 30 meters tall.

27:38And at some point, I just laid on the ground, just looking up at the structure, at this intricate web of bamboo extending upwards. I asked one of the festival's organizers, if bamboo is banned, can this festival still happen? Can the theater still be built in 10 years, or 20? He didn't have a certain answer. But he did say, I can't imagine building this out of metal. Bamboo master Timmy So is 38 years old. He assumed he still had decades of work ahead of him, and a craft to pass on.

28:10Now he's not sure. When asked about the resistance campaign, how people rose up in defense of bamboo, he can only manage the weakest of smiles. The local training center has already canceled classes required for new bamboo scaffolders. And the government is also providing incentives for all 3,500 existing bamboo workers to switch licenses and get one for working with metal scaffolding. The aim is to replace bamboo completely with metal at all major construction sites within two years.

28:40So there will be no more new bamboo scaffolders. So I think it's a little bit too late, but at least someone noticed us.

28:52It's been over half a year since the fire, and no one is blaming the bamboo scaffolding anymore, including the Hong Kong government. Instead, investigations have zeroed in on other highly flammable construction materials, the styrofoam boards that covered the windows, and the netting that surrounded the scaffolding. Just like Ma Mang said on day one of the fire. No safety checks had ever identified or flagged the use of these flammable materials, even though residents explicitly complained about them to authorities.

29:23Seven people have been charged following the fire. All of them involved with the companies that carried out the renovations. But no one from the Hong Kong government has been held accountable. And even if the bamboo isn't to blame, the phase-out of bamboo scaffolding won't be reversed. Like Timmy said, the new policy is moving forward. Still, Timmy doesn't think bamboo scaffolding can ever be banned completely. So long as there's an air conditioning unit and a hard-to-reach spot in a narrow alley between

29:53two oddly-shaped buildings. 65 stories up.

29:59After I left Hong Kong, Chan sent me the demo of the song he'd been singing at the Bamboo Theater. I listened to the lyrics again. I won't accept this bullshit, they go. 24 hours engulfed in fire, and still I won't break. Why put the blame on me? One day, you'll miss me when I'm gone. One day, you will miss me when I'm gone. Hong Kong is my best partner. Together strong. One day, you will miss me when I'm gone. One day, you will miss me when I'm gone. One day, you will miss me when I'm gone.

30:30I hit your john-like bamboo. I hit your john-like bamboo.

30:4099% Invisible was reported this week by Julie Blousey and edited by Joe Rosenberg. With additional production by Jason DeLeon. Mixed by Martin Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real and George Langford. Fact-checking by Graham Hecha. Many thanks to Raffaella Andritzi, an architect and photographer in Hong Kong, who helped us tremendously with the research for this episode and introduced us to bamboo masters, Timmy So and his father. Raffaella has been documenting Hong Kong's bamboo scaffolders since 2020. Her writing and photography will be featured in an upcoming book that looks very cool.

31:13It's called The Bamboo Metropolis, and we will have a link to it on our website. Kathy Tu is our executive producer. Kurt Kolstad is the digital director. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Leigh, Lash Madon, Kelly Prime, Jacob Medina Gleason, Talon and Rain Stradley, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stephan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora Building, in beautiful uptown Oakland, California.

31:47You can find us on all the usual social media sites, as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org.