Bamboo Scaffolding

We've all seen city buildings being renovated, and the steel scaffolding used for the construction workers to climb around on. But here's a twist: Behind the green platic netting in this picture is an exoskeleton completely formed by bamboo poles tied together with nylon twine. This is the way they've been doing it for centuries here, and although one of my travel books said this profession is slowly dying out, you wouldn't know it from looking at the buildings on almost evey block that have this same thing. Oh, and just in case you thought I wasn't going to work in a film reference here (Shane knows exactly what's coming), the art of erecting bamboo scaffolding was bizarrely combined with kung fu to hilarious effect in Lau Kar-leung's "Return to the 36th Chamber," a comedic follow-up to the original. Check out my man Gordon Liu beating up the baddies while simultaneously working on a building renovation. Now that's multitasking!