I've been catching this BBC program for a while, which is a series of documentaries for instance that first focuses on clothing sweatshops in India. Blood, Sweat and T-shirts. Its not your typical snooze factual program because they ship off half a dozen over-privelleged, self-obsessed British teenagers to the slums to experience first hand, the work of an Indian sweatshop worker.
I really love British teenagers. They are a breed like no other.
As you would expect, it goes down with much whining and rebellion, before they're slumming it in the outdoor toilets, living in squalor, slaving hours over a sewing machine and earning a minimum wage of a few pound a day. Some instances of child labour in action too. After watching Slumdog Millionaire, well, I didn't know people actually made clothes in the slums that were then shipped off to developed countries.
The other day, shopping and just walking into a chainstore, suddenly the smell of cheap, synthethic fabrics sickened me. As an asthmatic, my skin is sensitive to wool and synthetic fabrics. I'm allergic to several native grasses. Its a product, a developed allergy of the first world. In London, all the high street chain stores have ridiculous sales where you can buy clothes for $1. Here, its not to that extent as everything imported is slapped with ridiculous amounts of shipping taxes. But the premise still exists. Disposable clothing is not viable in any sense. I suppose most of our clothing comes from China rather than India and other Eastern European countries.
This week the show transformed to Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. Another motley crew of British youths are pinned down to a tuna factory in Indonesia.
Do you even know where tinned tuna comes from? I sure as hell didn't and why it costs 50c a can. People actually have to gut, skin and de-bone each one in the sweltering conditions it takes to cook the fish. I don't eat tuna these days because my herbalist told me not to, and I dislike the taste of tinned salmon. I'm not even that indignant about whaling, dolphin hunting, or over-fishing for that matter. Probably, humanist in that way.
After being kicked out of the factory for inciting, oh violence? the boys board a tuna fishing ship for a different experience. For a 12 hour journey to deeper waters, the fishermen are paid a pittance of 7 pound a trip. But there was something beautiful after 12 hours of dark stormy seas, in that crisp blue morning, suddenly the fisherman were casting their lines, and a symphony of tuna dancing up in to the air and in to the ship. In a swarm, a fisherman can catch 10 fish a minute, each.
In both instances, the teenagers said that once they saw how hard the workers worked, they felt by going back home and not buying those dirt cheap clothes and food, they couldn't support and appreciate them. But really, how is continually supporting the current system any solution. Aren't we just propagating the problem?
Tescoes and Sainsburys are chock full of ready made meals. A phenomenon I had not met with until I went there myself. Clothing from India. Food from South East Asia. The world's resources are shipped off to that tiny corner of the Earth, and the waste by products are shipped back again.
I probably say this all the time, because I love documentaries, I feel like they change me. Am I incredibly naive or what? Or in at least, my perspective on things that I won't actively try to find out about. Its so easy to ignore what happens in the world. I am far too guilty of just turning the page of a newspaper when the story hits on politics or war or disaster. Some time after the saturation of 9/11 and terrorism, it kind of didn't make sense to saturate my mind with every single detail. Its so much easier to be ignorant. TV is such an easy medium to get the message across, though some flashy inaccurate snapshot of one. This is heavy!
Well I didn't want to turn off the TV, fold away the newspaper and forget it, like I usually do.
Man I am boooring. You probably wish I would just shut up and just review fluffy movies or join Greenpeace. Actually I hate Greenpeace too for their stance on mulesing sheep. Cynical much.
Is it just me or has the level of design books at K i n o k u n i y a hit an all time low? The stock has changed little in the last six months. They keep changing the sections around, could only find one decent wall, completely superseded by those game/movie concept art illustration manuals. :p You know, I always admired old school concept artists like Alan Lee (illustrated LotR, worked with Peter Jackson) and Brian Froud (Faeries, The Dark Crystal). They were like the heroes I aspired to be. More recently, I love combing over film concept art books like UP. A mixture of traditional and digital mediums more intent on capturing stylistic concept than realism.
This type of realistic art that I see people drool over, I kind of dislike. There isn't any soul in them, only cold dead eyes and plastic skin. Unless you're being blatant like David La Chapelle. Its a never-ending series! Surely this kind is taking over the world..
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