Bamboo's high status in Chinese culture is not only due to these ancient legends, but based also on its unique characteristics.

The poet Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) describes bamboo in the story called "Planting bamboo": bamboo is firm, straight, empty inside, divided into segments. So the poet related these features to people's moral characteristics such as grittiness, uprightness, modesty and openness because they are homophonous in Chinese.

Gradually people, especially scholars, began to compare bamboo to men of moral integrity who are called junzi in Chinese. In Chinese culture, 痡unzi can be said to be the highest title for any person.