My fab friend, Ay-Leen has a liking for the term "bamboopunk", to refer to steampunk set in East Asian countries like China, where bamboo is plentiful. In further consideration, this is feasible, because the bamboo is extremely useful and it's possible to attain a level of industrialization using water technology supported by bamboo architecture. As stereotypical as it sounds to associate bamboo with China, it does make some sense, judging what resources are available to us.
(By the way, while technically bamboo is a grass, BAMBOO IS A TREE, OKAY. Nobody calls it the "bamboo grass", they call it "bamboo tree". I was at my uncle's place recently and he showed me a book called "Things Chinese" written by some white dude, and the authour very patronizingly said, "the Chinese do not recognize the bamboo as a grass." Well of course not, because nobody calls it "the bamboo grass", and besides which, if you think about grass, it doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence that this plant can, in fact, hold up your house.)
I told this to my cousins yesterday when I went to visit (cousins I don't see often enough; my dad's elder brother's kids, who are geniuses and smarter than me), and one of them said, "but what about the coconut tree?? It's the Tree of a Thousand Uses!" Bantering, we surmised that fuel, wood, architecture, punchcard tech and the like could possibly be supported with coconut trees. I personally would supplement this tech with bamboo myself.
Because the -punk label is overused to the point of ridiculousness, with people taking it too seriously (
sorry you got caught in the trap, dieselpunk), I am not going to demean this new idea with the term "coconutpunk". (My friend Tariq wants to use "kelapank" - kelapa (Malay) + punk - but I will publicly veto this idea outright.)
(Except in certain Nusantaran circles.)
What local, region-specific resources have you guys been considering lately for your steampunk?
