^Up the ladder to the truck from where the scaffolders climbed
to work on a height of the fourth floor.
Legend has it that the inventor of bamboo scaffolding was Youchao (literally Have Shelter), a legendary character in ancient China who built the first tree house in human history (Oops, I had thought that it was Tarzar's parents). Scaffolding is an old trade indeed.
^The scaffolder is without a safety helmet, which is apparently against the law.
The bamboo scaffolding is as aesthetic as technical which we learned in two old posts here and here. Not all scaffolding is built with the same method. Whenever I find the bamboo scaffolders erect the huge masterpieces in a day or two, I cannot but exclaim with utmost admiration.
^A scaffolder earns around HK$1,000 a day which is not much
because they do not have work on a daily basis.
The best part showing courage and skills is none other than their swift movements of drifting effortlessly from one corner to another on the scaffolds, which always amazes me like what windowing shopping a well-stocked confectionary would be to a young child.
<- The scaffolding is built upon a sidewalk next to Nathan Road, the thoroughfare of the Kowloon Penisular. The area under a scaffolding is seldom cordoned off, which speak volumns for the technical sturdiness of it. As an aside, Nathan was one of British viceroy to Hong Kong. Most of the old streets are named after the top echelon officials in the Hong Kong British colonial government, of which the Chinese names were sometimes translated in a obnoxious word-play way. This could make another topic.
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