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MedWoodWorx said:
Dangerous is an understatement
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That is how the many individuals outside of industrialized world gets to eat, or otherwise their families would starve. And the USA was not far from that "mentality" through the 1950's. "Safety" is a still a personal requirement and issue outside the USA and Euro Countries, and a necessity for many like him and others, including the link with the one that uses the toe. They amaze me with their skill with minimum tools,
 
I spent 1995 working in the PRC building and starting up a chemical plant to make calcium hypochlorite (aka Hockey Pucks to chlorinate swimming pools). Bearing in mind that this is only 29 years ago, some of the things that I saw people achieve with poor quality or no tools compared to the west was impressive. The importance of such developments to the local economy soon became clear when the whole of the local population would turn out to help construct things like roads or dig foundations for another chemical plant. If necessary, they would dig with their bare hands or spoons since not everyone owned a spade.

Apparently, this was how the 1 mile long road from the chemical complex to the local river was constructed to get the product to market. Unfortunately, this crudity of approach was also evident with the construction of the chemical plants, and safety issues that would not be tolerated in the west were common. For example, liquid chlorine was made and up to 20 tons of it stored in a tank sitting on railway sleepers right next to the road. If one of the many vehicles that passed the tank had hit it and caused a major leak it would have killed most of the local population, including us! And you have to see the way they drive to understand the concern. We would take bets as to where the daily chlorine leak would come from. Any kind of chlorine leak in the west would be national, if not international news. By way of a little levity we had Scott Airpacks (as used by firefighters) in case of a bad leak to do rescue work. We used to joke that we might need to use them to go to the bathroom in the very hot (40 C & 90% humidity) summer because the smell was so bad. Ahhh those were the days!
 
Skill is one thing and putting yourself to harms way is another. Of course i admire a skilled craftsman but putting a piece to the end of a motor without any controls is dangerous. I also know poor; all the machinists shops (as well as woodshops) during the 50s and 60s in Greece had minimal safety equipment. Most of these craftsmen have health issues and missing fingers. In a nutshell this is how us in the west buy cheap stuff from china, india etc.
 
I have a book that talks about the trained elephants in India. An elephant, according to the writer, are allowed to kill up to five mahouts before being destroyed. What we see in foreign countries would give OSHA people the shivers.
Edit: There was a documentary about men in coastal India who dismantle old ships for metal recycling. They are exposed to various petroleum products and asbestos...all for about ten cents a day.
 
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