Every summer in Hong Kong, hundreds of construction workers and engineers make a pilgrimage up 200 steps to Ching Lin Terrace in Kennedy Town's seaside neighborhood. At a small temple there, they gather to pay their respects to Lo Pan, a legendary Chinese carpenter from the Zhou dynasty who serves as the patron saint of builders and contractors. Despite the sweltering heat, workers crowd into the tiny temple's smoke-filled foyer, carrying incense and candlesticks as they bow and chant in honor of their construction deity's birthday, praying for stable work throughout the year.

"I always tell people that Lo Pan is like our Michelangelo. He is a designer, an architect and an engineer," said Lawrence Ng, president of the Hong Kong Construction Sub-Contractors Association, which represents the city's waterproofing, metalwork and scaffolding professionals. "We must pay respects to the workers who came before us, and Lo Pan is our sifu (master)." This worship has taken on particular significance in today's uncertain economy, as the city has seen a decline in large-scale construction projects since the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving many laborers without steady employment.

Among those affected are Hong Kong's "spidermen" – thousands of construction workers trained in the ancient technique of bamboo scaffolding. Behind Lo Pan temple, a towering residential building displays a familiar sight to anyone who has walked Hong Kong's streets: bamboo poles arranged in a distinctive grid-like formation. These crisscrossed structures, with each pole fastened using nylon ties, are ubiquitous across the city's dense, vertical urban landscape.

The scaffolds are erected on skyscrapers hundreds of feet high and encased in fabric safety nets that form colorful cocoons of green, blue, and purple. Smaller bamboo contraptions often extend from windows or cover air conditioning units and balconies. Bamboo scaffolding is used not only in constructing new buildings but also in renovating thousands of high-rises and historic tenements (tong lau) every year.

This technique has been popular in Hong Kong for over a century, though its origins in Chinese construction date back at least 2,000 years to the Han dynasty. The method was also widely used in mainland China until government regulations in the 1990s began calling for steel and aluminum scaffolds to align with international norms. However, bamboo remained the preferred material in Hong Kong and has been used to build some of the city's tallest skyscrapers, including Norman Foster's HSBC headquarters and parts of the 88-floor International Finance Centre.

Beyond helping develop Hong Kong's modern structures, bamboo has played an integral role in building temporary Cantonese opera theaters. These traditional theaters, constructed entirely from the plant, are built for special occasions like local deity birthdays or the Hungry Ghost Festival. The scaffolding technique has become part of the city's visual language, offering distinct advantages over metal alternatives.

"Steel is relatively stiff and strong, but it's less flexible than bamboo," explained Goman Ho, a structural engineer at British firm Arup with over three decades of experience overseeing tall building development in the city, including the 928-foot-tall Cheung Kong Center. "Bamboo, on the other hand, has its own craftsmanship. You can build a lot of beautiful scaffolding in ways you'd never think of. It's culture we need to maintain."

Whether used in traditional or modern construction, handling the long bamboo poles requires specific skills and intuition that can take months or years to master. "Sometimes people spend one, two, three or even four years learning bamboo scaffolding and may not become masters," said Ho Ping-Tak, Chairman of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Bamboo Scaffolding Workers Union. "But with metal, the technical requirements are lower. If you have the strength, you can generally meet the requirements in a much shorter time."

As the largest member of the grass family, bamboo presents certain challenges. It is combustible, susceptible to deterioration, and weaker in rain, raising legitimate questions about durability. Arup's Goman Ho suggested that poles could be coated with epoxy or plastic solutions to prevent erosion, emphasizing that "it's culture we need to maintain."

Keeping this tradition alive faces significant challenges. The industry comprises an aging workforce, with many workers like 78-year-old Leung Siu Wai nearing retirement. New talent is also lacking, according to Ng. "It's hard to get young people to enter," he noted. "Young people in Hong Kong don't want to do physically demanding work, or work that gives them an identity they feel uncomfortable with."

Discussions about safeguarding the practice resurfaced when Hong Kong's Development Bureau announced that 50% of new public building projects erected from March onwards would need to use metal scaffolding to better protect workers and align with modern construction standards in advanced cities. This policy will impact only one or two new building projects this year, with the bureau confirming that just one public project would be affected in 2025.

Despite the limited immediate impact, some Hong Kong residents have taken to social media to express concern about what they perceive as the beginning of the end for bamboo scaffolding. "This is your sign to film bamboo scaffolding while you still can," wrote a Hong Kong videographer in an Instagram post that received over 20,000 likes. "Truly one of Hong Kong's quiet wonders. And soon, it'll just be part of the past."

The traditional building technique has gained international recognition, being featured as part of the Hong Kong pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale, the world's largest architecture exhibition. In May, a sprawling bamboo scaffold was constructed in Venice's Campo della Tana courtyard as part of a showcase exploring diverse and often contrasting aspects of public space in Hong Kong, focusing on threatened heritage.

The pavilion's curators said their proposal was finalized in January, two months before the government announced its move toward more metal scaffolding. "We were a bit shocked, to say the least, because we had planned for this without knowing the government's announcement was coming," said architect and curator Ying Zhou. "So immediately, we were like, 'Oh what does our thing now say?' It takes on a whole different kind of importance, especially when we bring it to a place like Venice." Eleven bamboo masters traveled to Venice to build the structure, impressing Italian counterparts with how quickly and precisely the material was assembled without extensive calculations.

Safety concerns have prompted increased government intervention, with 24 deaths related to bamboo scaffolding recorded from January 2018 to August 2025, according to Hong Kong's Labour Department. Thirty-six-year-old Over Chan, a bamboo scaffold worker who builds structures for external repair work, noted that industry-wide discussions about fatal accidents have led to stricter regulations. "When I was starting out as a worker, we didn't even have to wear shirts, but now, we're required to wear our uniform, have good manners, and so on – this ultimately allows us to rise above the competition."

Ho Ping-Tak emphasized that "bamboo is not unsafe," stressing the importance of workers properly securing themselves to bamboo structures. "It's fine to use metal scaffolding – we're not saying that metal scaffolding is a competing technique, but if the government makes an announcement without much explanation, it gives the public the wrong impression that bamboo is unsafe, which has huge implications."

Hong Kong's Development Bureau told CNN that adopting metal scaffolding is just one way to improve site safety, stating that "provided relevant legislative requirements on bamboo scaffolds and metal scaffolds are fulfilled, both types of scaffolds are safe." The bureau added that the government has no intention to phase out bamboo scaffolds entirely.

Many large-scale construction projects already incorporate a hybrid approach, using metal bars fixed to the ground to support bamboo structures higher up. Ho estimates that currently, 80% of scaffolds use bamboo, while 20% employ metal or hybrid materials. Chan, who remains optimistic about the trade, has started taking courses on metal scaffolding to enhance his skills, despite believing that bamboo isn't disappearing. "Over the past few years, there's been this feeling in Hong Kong about needing to preserve what's left of the city's identity," he observed, reflecting the broader cultural significance of this centuries-old practice in modern Hong Kong.