10th February, 2001
Colors Of Hats; Brown Yellow Lacquered: Customers Buy Thin Bamboo Bundles: Work By Families, Making Skips, Baskets, Hard Hats.
October,1995
The colors of coolie hats can be very decorative, as we would see. Leaving the street we came to an open area covered in coolie hats all ready for the shops and markets. The colors of the coolie hats had changed to brown and yellow after being lacquered, and a red flower motif added which enhanced the appearance of them.
 It seemed a perfect setting for our taxi driver to have her photograph taken, so she carefully stepped into the centre of them. In the meantime more hats were being added to the display and the area covered was getting bigger and must have represented many skilful handwork hours by the women. A coolie hat similar to these is hanging on a wall in my home, given to me by Tang, when we met in Guilin, except that it has three bands, brown, yellow and black.The next street we came to must have been, "Timber And Bamboo Street" because nothing else was being sold there. Timber with different grains and in a variety of sizes was on display but most activity was centred around the area selling bundles of thin bamboo.
Customers were selecting and counting the bamboo before buying, presumably to take back to their homes, to make even more coolie hats, or perhaps skips or baskets or hard hats, as this type of work is often done by families.When we were in the taxi on the road from Tong Mu back to the junction, another holdup made us stop behind an open backed lorry with passengers, complete with their purchases, including three bamboo bundles, small, medium and large, and I wondered what they were going to make.
I had a mind to ask them, but instead took a photograph through the window, which didn�t seem to bother them.
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