Opera House

The art of building bamboo opera houses is in decline.

Wearing rubber gloves to protect their hands, their bodies glistening with sweat under a blazing sun, bamboo workers nimbly go about building another Chiu Chow opera house in Wong Tai Sin.

The team works methodically, fixing bamboo poles together with plastic ties. As if alive, the framework for the opera house grows steadily.

Passers-by glance at the work in progress and old men sitting in the shade of a nearby garden scrutinise each move, unaware perhaps they are watching a dying skill.

But the owner of one of a small handful of companies specialising in the building of bamboo opera houses is fully aware of the danger.

Cheung Shuet-ying, 57, boss of Wai Yip bamboo, said the industry was doomed unless it attracted young workers.

"Young people dislike the work because it's hard, dirty and generally poorly paid," Mrs Cheung said between answering a flurry of telephone calls.

"Bamboo opera house building will disappear if there are no new workers. Even if it doesn't disappear, the technique will not be as good as it is today because people are not being trained."

I had the privilege of photographing a completed opera house two days before the shows were to begin. The opera was to celebrate the birthday of a temple at a nearby village. The building was amazing.

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Im Shun-lee, now in his 40s, began learning the craft when he was 15. Today, with design plans well and truly imprinted on his brain, he can just about build an opera house with his eyes closed. He said younger workers learned from older ones by observation and imitation.

"It's hard to teach anyone with words alone how to build the bamboo houses. Experience is an important factor in our work. Only by practising will rookies master the techniques," Mr Im said.

Building bamboo houses, which were an art themselves, was more complicated than erecting scaffolding, he said.

While opera house builders could build scaffolding, he doubted whether scaffolders could build opera houses.

I agree with him. Raising such a structure takes precise engineering.

About 4,000 bamboo poles are needed to build the framework of a 20,000 sq ft opera house, which is considered small.

More than 10,000 are needed to build a big, 100,000 sq ft one. Hundreds of iron sheets are used for roofs and some walls.

It usually takes 10 workers about a week to build four small houses needed for the Yue Nan, or Hungry Ghost, festival, which takes place this time of year. The work goes on in either rain or sunshine because the dates for the opera performances have been set.

After a performance is over, the houses are pulled down and moved to a new site. All unbroken poles are reused, with new supplies coming from Guangdong and Guangxi.

Mrs Cheung is unsure of what the future holds for bamboo opera house builders.

But she knows that without willing and experienced workers, she has no business.

People would be more amenable if the money was better. The altruistic are scarce in Hong Kong.

It's sad to see arts such as this and dragon boat building falling by the wayside.

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