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THE JAPANESE have a clever way of hanging clothes to dry. Sometimes the clothes are hung on a clothesline of rope, but most of the time they are slung through bamboo poles. The pole slides into the sleeves or trousers leg of the garments and they hang there looking like fashionable scarecrows. Hung in this fashion, the clothes fill with wind and dry rapidly.

Clothes poles are only one of the many services rendered by Japan's top commodity, bamboo. It also provides, among many other things, chopsticks for the diner, umbrellas for the rainwalker, bow and arrows for the archer, fans for the sun-drenched, writing brushes for the artist, baskets for the farmer, water conveying pipes for the plumber, handbags for the housewife, and endless ornaments for the house.

Back home on washday, the serviceman's wife may not find bamboo handy but, to the dismay of the returned husband, this will not prevent her from hanging her clothes Japanese style.

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