A restaurant operator in Kaohsiung surnamed Chang has used rare golden bamboo to make highly artistic fishing rods prized by aficionados.
Chang explained that golden bamboo is a mutation of Makino bamboo that occurs less than once out of every 10,000 plants, and only one in 1,000 of the golden bamboo is really top quality. The appearance of each golden bamboo is unique, and cannot be re-created artificially. In the past all such bamboo was exported to Japan.