While visiting Taiwan earlier in the year, I had the good fortune to spend some time with two different bamboo crafts practitioners. Following a lead from one of them, I visited a ‘tool shop’ situated in the lounge room of a small house down a narrow lane in Lukang. I was able to add to my small collection of bamboo tools with some hand-made ones from Taiwan.

From left to right: tool to make round holes; double-sided knife; twin set of blades to produce strips of bamboo for weaving. The small blades are extremely sharp. I don’t weave, but use them as trimming/shaving tools.

After the transaction (and the obligatory cup of green tea), the daughter of the house escorted me to an old Confucian temple. At the temple, I took the opportunity, under guided instruction, to bestow blessings upon a wedding that had occurred just the day before back in Australia. We did this by offering burning sticks of incense at several different alters within the temple.

As well as incense, paper money, made from bamboo, is available for purchase at the temple. There are special furnaces within the temple grounds for this purpose. The paper money is burned as offerings for the Gods and ancestors. Burning paper money is not confined to the temple though. Moving through just about any street in Taiwan during the week-long Chinese New Year holiday (when I was there) is to be enveloped in smoke, especially early in the mornings, as householders and business owners make their offerings in small braziers on the pavements.

You can read more about paper money in Taiwan here.