House out of bamboo

The house of our friends in the Transylvanian Sic/Szék was taken away by the flood. As a consequence of the heavy rains going on for weeks, the hill of Felszeg has slid, and all six houses of the street have collapsed. The families, together with their children and old parents, had to go to live with relatives. Neither them, nor the local government has enough money to rebuild the houses. The administration of the county promised some support, but it will be certainly far from enough, and nobody knows when it would come. In the village there is almost no job opportunity, and both men and women have to commute hundreds of kilometers for a minimum of subsistence. They who now lost their houses badly need help.



In these days we had to cut down our beautiful Chinese bamboo plantation, because in fifteen years it grew so strong that it was irresistibly spreading to our neighbors. We decided to do one good thing out of two bad ones. We announce a collection of donations for our friends in Sic/Szék, and to those contributing with at least ten or fifteen euros we will give a beautiful rod of Chinese bamboo. We hand them over personally on Saturday between eleven and twelve o’clock in the car park of the Bosnyák market square. It is at that hour that the market, one of the last great traditional markets in Budapest is the most vivid, so it is worth coming there even for that. If you will come, write beforehand at szek@studiolum.com and tell us the length (max. 4 m) and diameter (1 to 3-4 cm) of the bamboo rod you want.


We also wait for the help of those who cannot come. They can send their contribution by ordinary mail, in an envelope at the address of Studiolum: Studiolum, 1631 Budapest, Pf. 119, Hungary (or else we send an IBAN for bank transfer/a PayPal address on request). They will receive, instead of a real bamboo, a scanned version of the great classic 三希堂画宝竹谱, the traditional Chinese manual for bamboo painting, with hundreds of printable full-page bamboo drawings. Stick a beautiful stamp on the envelope, as we will prepare a memorial collage of them.