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RE: It's A Roof 🛖 & An Injury-Free Construction Site 👷♂️
Oh, I can certainly relate to that, but funny how relative things can be! I remember talking to German carpenters who have worked in the US, as well as Mexico, and how they complained about "cowboys shooting from the hips" describing American imprecision. 🤣 On the other hand, when comparing things to Mexico, they said that in the US there is such an abundance of tools, which can be good and bad. Mexican lack of precision is usually because they need to improvise more, making things work without good tools, so in a way they are more skilled at building things decently enough without exact measurements.
0.00278624 BEE
That is a good point, Germans are definitely on point with their engineering. Timber framing and carpentry can be done at a high skill level without even having power tools. The Amish built my childhood home using only 1800s style tools, and the quality was arguably better than that of a local crew with power tools.
Japanese wood joinery is incredibly beautiful, and most of it done with manual tools. The guys here have all the power tools an American team would have (minus the safety equipment), but there is a general attitude in Cambodia to do things just good enough. There aren't many people passionate about their work here, and I think that's a big problem. The genocide killed and/or chased out all the skilled workers years ago, even wearing prescription glasses or being Vietnamese was enough to get you killed back in the day.
I think a lack of mathematical skills like geometry prevent a lot of nice angles and things. Just focus on the plumb bob and hit everything until it's straight, and anything that can't fit will have wooded chipped away until it works. These circumstances usually create some bizarre angles. There are some talented woodworker crews in Cambodia, but their scarcity demands a high price, so these guys almost exclusively work for resorts and rich folk.
Oh wow... Respect for the Amish built house! I bet it must have been much more sturdy than the typical American home, slapped together with stick-frame and drywall!
Of course the attitude of doing something just "good enough" can be seen all over the world. In Hungary there is a new word jóvanazúgy meaning exactly that, where you can see all kinds of horrible examples of construction fails. But even in legendarily precise Germany the culture is aware of builders cutting corners. There is a surprisingly funny film about that called Was nicht passt wird passend gemacht, with the English title: If It Don Fit, Use a Bigger Hammer.
Oh, regarding math skills, I noticed it on myself how pointless it is to torture students with the theory if it remains unconnected to applications. Seriously, have them plan and build things (with their minds and hands), or apply geometry in sailing / navigation, or surveying the topography, or anything practical. Otherwise the conceptual theory will never make sense. At least in cases like myself, where I had to literary rediscover geometry in applications, years after learning about it in school.
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