BBC 3 series, "Blood, Sweat and Takeaways"

This is a four part series where a group of British food and fast-food junkies travel to Indonesia and Thailand to work in the food production industry (tuna, shrimp, rice and chicken) for local wages while living in the same conditions as the other workers.

The series gives an interesting insight into the lives of the rural and urban poor workers in Indonesia and Thailand. As well as how useless and removed from reality young Brits are these days.

I have to admit that at first I was embarrassed that I originated from the same place as the group in the series, however, by the end of the series they seemed to have matured somewhat and learnt some valuable lessons. Which in turn made it much easier to watch them.

Definitely worth watching if your interested. It has made me think more carefully about where my food has come from and if it's fair trade produce.

Sounds like it could be an interesting watch, thanks.

Anyone finds a good torrent for this post it up here, can't find a decent one yet.

Sounds good when is it on?

Sorry I should have explained...

It has been on in the UK over the last couple of weeks, the final episode has already aired, but, you can probably download it from somewhere.

Found Ep4 only, on UKnova, its in Bangkok doing Fish & chicken.
Good lad James Ray, a farmer from Essex does a great job, when the others all wimped out from the fish Processing he jumped in.
Your a hero James.:)
Excellent Program, hope I can find the other eps

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Originally Posted by peterpan

Good lad James Ray

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Yeah. He was sound. That spoilt student needed a good slap.

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Originally Posted by peterpan

Excellent Program, hope I can find the other eps

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All 4 are on The Box. 1,3 & 4 are on IP Torrents

^A few things ruined it. They were struggling for money when they were working in the rice fields because they were paying 900 (nine hundred) baht a day (day) rent for a shack, which of course forced them to move to work in Bangkok.

That's 27,000 baht a month for a shack.

Ruined the whole reality bit.

I liked the bloke whose foot went funny (fat with glasses) and got put up in a top room in Bumrumgrad.:)

https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/07/611.jpg

Black bloke got thrown out for pushing the asian bloke through a window. Replaced by farmer guy.

https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
^Twit

They were paying 450 a day for the house. They missed the first day's rent, so they had to pay 900 on the second day.

450 is still too much though, at first I thought it was 450 for the whole week!

It made it look like all Thai workers upcountry are starving to death, but, in reality they will all be living with family for free, and will therefore have a lot more money for food.

Oh wow, another reality series, be still my beating heart.

if it opened , be it ever so slightly just one pair of eyes it's a success

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Originally Posted by madjbs

They were paying 450 a day for the house. They missed the first day's rent, so they had to pay 900 on the second day.

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They were also underpaid on the daily rate for a rice worker in Udon according to the missus.

How much were they getting paid, and what should the rates be?

I'm looking forward to watching this, but things like paying 450 baht daily for a room does take the reality away from it and quite annoying. They should have stuck them in with a Thai family, bare minimum charge, the way the majority of workers actually do live.

Most of the time they were living with the locals for free. Only on the Rice one where they had to pay for a house.

They were getting paid the real rates for their work, about 150 baht a day I think it was.

150-200 a day sounds about right for a rice worker.

Marmer's gf must have upped her wages to account for the 1 million baht sinsot she's going to hit him with. :)

Minimum wage upcountry is actually around 150. Most of the rice workers actually get bellow that, about 100-150.

Only factory workers in Bangkok will make 200, which is about the minimum wage in the city.

But people do get paid above minimum wage as well Madjbs, I know a Burmese illegal who got 300 baht a day shelling prawns at Bang Rak. Having said that, 100 baht a day wouldn't surprise me for rice workers either.

Where did u get your info Madjbs, direct from the workers? I can't say I have ever asked one of them to be honest.

Marmers, what does your missus think the wage is?

Actually I just checked and they were getting only 100 a day, which does seem low. But, they claimed that was the average for a rice labourer over a whole year, which is probably true.

I have never asked directly what they earn but I know people who do rural development work and studies at a university here.

Factories rarely pay much over minimum wage, they might just have a couple of levels to differentiate between really bad jobs and just bad jobs. Still, very unusual for an illegal immigrant to get above minimum wage, perhaps he gets paid on the weight of prawns he shells.

She may well do actually, I was quite surprised when my friend mentioned her wages too.

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Originally Posted by tjyflhol

How much were they getting paid, and what should the rates be?

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5 years ago the rate was 150 Baht a day in Udon.

It seemed to run out of steam in the last episode. They finally dragged the bargirls into it and had an arguement with some drunk to pad it out, plus all the flashbacks of the participants backgrounds which got shown every episode.

People in the UK are too isolated from the food chain. You could have done a similar program with them without leaving the UK, say fruit picking, cockling, black pudding factory, chicken farm and got very similar reactions.

In general I liked it (while squirming with embarrassment at their holier than thou atttitudes - like when the fat bloke made such a big fuss about that Indo toilet), but the price of the Thai shack and the Nana last episode really spoilt it.

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Originally Posted by madjbs

They were paying 450 a day for the house. They missed the first day's rent, so they had to pay 900 on the second day. 450 is still too much though, at first I thought it was 450 for the whole week!

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I would expect 450-1000 bah a month at most. The point is that very few rice farmers would be renting and they most have plenty of vegetables and fruit growing on their land, plus chickens and obviously rice.