Is the Beggar's Union Chief's Dog Beating Stick made of jade or bamboo?

[Ken Cheng]

One thing I'm not sure about is whether the Dog Beating Stick, the personal weapon and symbol of authority of the Beggar's Union Chief, is supposed to be made of jade or bamboo. In adaptations of wuxia novels, it's typically depicted as being made of jade, but I've also read that it's made of bamboo. Which one is it?

Jade weapons (such as East Heretic Wong Yerk See's original flute) generally seem impractical. Jade is beautiful to look at, but it's not particularly durable, and doesn't seem suitable as material for a martial arts weapon.

[a_tumiwa]

bamboo, maybe the colour is greenish like jade
in DGSD, it is said the bamboo is special one not just regular bamboo

[pannonian]

Much of the DBS technique uses the lightness and flexibility of the DBS. While it's useable with something heavier (Yang Guo performed it with a heavy iron staff, and Guo Xiang performed it with a sword), it's ideally performed with a bamboo stick of a certain length.

[Ken Cheng]

Additionally, was Kiu Fung the only Beggar's Union Chief who did not customarily carry the Dog Beating Stick around with him as his personal weapon? Seems like all the other Beggar's Union Chief carried the stick at all times, but Kiu Fung only ever handled it when he gave it to Elder Tsui upon resigning from the Chief's position and the Union.

[wkeej]

The one carried by HR in 2017 loch has patches of black. So I suspect it is more bamboo than jade.

[Ken Cheng]

The one carried by HR in 2017 loch has patches of black. So I suspect it is more bamboo than jade.

Bamboo would also be more befitting the image of beggars than jade, but it's difficult to imagine a piece of bamboo surviving centuries of being used as a weapon, and often being stolen/passed around by martial artists. That's one durable piece of bamboo.

[pannonian]

Bamboo would also be more befitting the image of beggars than jade, but it's difficult to imagine a piece of bamboo surviving centuries of being used as a weapon, and often being stolen/passed around by martial artists. That's one durable piece of bamboo.

I'd imagine they'd replace it whenever it was looking tatty.

[Ken Cheng]

I'd imagine they'd replace it whenever it was looking tatty.

I've considered the possibility that it was not literally the same physical stick all the way from Kiu Fung's predecessor, Chief Wong in DGSD, to Chief Shih in HSDS roughly 250 years later.

[junzi]

I'd imagine they'd replace it whenever it was looking tatty.

reminds me of an excerpt from the book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams:

I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. “So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide.

“But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question.

“But it’s burnt down?”

“Yes.”

“Twice.”

“Many times.”

“And rebuilt.”

“Of course. It is an important and historic building.”

“With completely new materials.”

“But of course. It was burnt down.”

“So how can it be the same building?”

“It is always the same building.”

I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.

[CC]

reminds me of an excerpt from the book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams:

Well, like the ship of Theseus....

Maybe the easier way to think about it is of the DBS as made of several components. e.g. you have a main bamboo body, then you have some bronze fastenings and jade ornamentation and silk tassels. You replace some of the parts over time as it wears.