Protesters Assemble a Barricade of Bamboo

HONG KONG - Eric Wu, a 37-year-old construction worker, has spent his entire adult life building and climbing bamboo scaffolding as high as 50 floors above the ground.

But on Monday morning, he used his talents to pursue a different goal - lashing together two-inch-thick bamboo poles in an elaborate lattice that he designed to protect an encampment of pro-democracy student protesters here. The lattice was a yard high, about 20 feet wide and 30 feet deep, and blocked a road just a block from the Hong Kong police headquarters

He paused occasionally from expertly lashing together 12-foot-long poles with strips of black plastic to give instructions to student protesters, who were more clumsily trying to tie poles together using long lengths of clear plastic wrapping. He talked about how he thought democracy would create a better Hong Kong, but also gave an economic reason for his presence at the demonstration: 'Times are tough, there are no jobs in construction.'

Protesters added more bamboo-pole lattices to their barricades through Monday evening, and were sawing off the ends of some of the longer poles to give them long-sharp points. If the protesters wield the poles as long, heavy spears, they could make it considerably more dangerous for police or others to try to disperse and remove them. That possibility could in turn prompt the police to use greater levels of force than the batons they might otherwise employ.

Map: Areas of Skirmishes and Protests in Hong Kong

At his daily afternoon news conference on Monday, Hui Chun-tak, the chief police spokesman, labeled all further construction of barricades as 'illegal and highly irresponsible,' though he did not single out bamboo barricades in particular.

Mr. Wu's labors brought together one of China 's oldest traditions - bamboo scaffolding - with Hong Kong's widespread aspirations for democracy, particularly among the young, and a dissatisfaction with the local economy among blue-collar workers.

Bamboo scaffolding is an ancient building technique in China, in use for more than 1,000 years. While mainland China has curtailed its use for buildings more than six stories tall for safety reasons, it remains popular in Hong Kong.

Generations of construction workers here have learned through an elaborate apprenticeship system the techniques of lashing bamboo together. Construction executives and engineers say that bamboo offers a sturdy yet flexible alternative to steel, particularly in a coastal environment where strong winds and typhoons can blow in off the South China Sea.

'Due to its unique property of very long parallel fibers and a sectional geometric structure, bamboo is very flexible before its breaking point,' said Stefan Krakhofer, a visiting assistant professor of building science and technology at the City University of Hong Kong. 'That makes it very suitable for forces occurring in a scaffolding.'

Bamboo is still popular in Hong Kong because the poles are one-sixth the price and one-third the weight of steel poles, and they can be erected in half the time of steel scaffolding, said Flord So, the chairman of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Scaffolders General Merchant Association, a trade group. Bamboo poles are somewhat more likely to break, including in storms, but inflict far less damage when they fall than do steel poles, he added.

Hong Kong builders use steel brackets to strengthen bamboo scaffolding more than 50 feet tall.

Bamboo poles also offer environmental benefits: Not only are they a natural material, but bamboo poles are dismantled after each building project and reused at the next project. Many of the poles being used by Mr. Wu appeared weathered.

Mr. Wu began creating his bamboo barrier after the police, in a series of unexpected dawn raids on protest encampments Monday, carted off many of the barriers of steel or super-hardened plastic that the students had been using. Most of these barriers actually belonged to the police, but the students had commandeered them when the police largely withdrew from the city center on Sept. 29.

Blue-collar workers like Mr. Wu, often unemployed and disaffected by the high cost of living in Hong Kong, have joined the protesters in significant numbers, although students appear to make up the largest share of protesters.

The overall unemployment rate in Hong Kong has stayed steady for the last several years at around 3.3 percent. But the broad rate disguises pockets of unemployment among the young and less educated. Unemployment has been a particular problem among construction workers, as builders have imported inexpensive prefabricated sections of buildings from factories in mainland China, reducing the need for labor in Hong Kong.

Sam Tse, a 54-year-old electrician, came to the demonstrations on Monday afternoon for the first time to show support for the protesters and their calls for democracy. He said that he lived in public housing and despaired of earning enough to buy his own home in Hong Kong, where studio apartments measuring just 177 square feet and in an outlying area went on sale this summer for $250,000.

'It was tough to make a living before, but if you worked hard, you could move up - now, even if you work hard, you can't move ahead,' Mr. Tse complained.

Mr. Wu and Mr. Tse declined to give their full Chinese names, fearing that could make it easier for the police to track them down if the protests triggered a broader crackdown.

After Mr. Wu and the students finished the construction of their bamboo lattice, Mr. Wu headed to another barricade that students were reinforcing with scavenged sheets of plywood. Mr. Wu studied their efforts, and began barking instructions.

'If we can just find some nails,' he said, 'this barrier will be very sturdy.'

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