In a country with as much rain and sun as Vietnam, bamboo was everywhere before plastic arrived: baskets, winnowing trays, ladders, posts, tables and chairs, even whole houses.
Bamboo is a member of the grass family, hollow-stemmed, very fast growing and harvestable after a few years. But freshly cut bamboo cannot be used straight away. The culm still holds sugars and starch, and that is exactly what attracts termites and fungus, so the treatment step decides how long a piece will live.
Choosing the culm and treating it
- Age of the culm: too young and it is soft and shrinks a great deal, too old and it is brittle. Makers choose by age and by purpose.
- Time of cutting: many places avoid cutting in the season when the plant holds the most sap, because bamboo cut then is more prone to termites.
- Soaking: the traditional method, immersed in a pond or running water for several weeks to wash out some of the sugars and starch.
- Boiling or steaming: faster than soaking, usually combined with a treatment agent.
- Smoking and drying: dries evenly and changes the colour of the culm, while also helping against moisture.
Split strips and the weaving
Nan are the thin strips split from the culm, and the evenness of the strips decides the evenness of the whole weave. A good weaver splits strips almost identical without measuring, because the hands already know. When you look at a basket and see even strips, a flat weave and corners that do not skew, most of the work lies in the splitting rather than the weaving.
Woven pieces also handle damp better than people think, provided they are dried out again after getting wet. What ruins bamboo is not water but prolonged damp in a place with no air movement.
Keeping bamboo pieces at home
Hold to three things: never put it away while still damp, never keep it against a damp wall or in a closed cupboard for long, and never leave it in harsh sun for long because sun cracks bamboo. If white mould appears on the surface, wipe it dry and leave it somewhere airy; if you see fine dust falling from a small hole in the culm, that is usually a sign of insects inside and the piece should be separated from the others.
Working with packaging and display pieces, we have found the bamboo that lasts longest is the piece used regularly. A piece carefully stored in a closed cupboard usually fails before one kept out and often picked up. This is a ZUNGZA observation.
A few questions you often send us
Is bamboo a sustainable material
Bamboo grows fast and regenerates from the base, so it is often seen as a good choice at the material level. But the real impact also depends on how it is harvested, the chemicals used in treatment and the transport route, so the word bamboo should not be taken as a guarantee for the whole chain.
Can bamboo pieces be used with food
Many bamboo baskets, trays and platters are still used for dry food. For wet or oily food you need an appropriate finish, and what matters is knowing what the piece was treated with.
Why is every bamboo piece a different colour
The colour depends on the age of the culm, the treatment and the drying. Smoking gives a deep brown, sun drying gives a bright yellow, and two bamboo plants from two different hills also give different colours.