There's Gold in them thar swamps!
I've watched a few of these miraculous rebirths and have a few ideas about how these are staged and carried out.
First, lets set the stage: an Asian man, age unknown, is scuffling through an unnamed Asian country, looking at trash.
He often comes to an impromptu trash site where someone of means has discarded a valuable piece of electronics: Ear Buds, an air conditioner, an old Sony PlayStation, etc. Sometimes his travails are accompanied by jaunty music.
The man dutifully takes his dirt-encrusted prize back to his workshop, which is down a tree-lined boulevard, a few less wholesome streets, and ends at his red tiled abode. I might note that all of these finds are covered with the same kind and color of soil. We'll come back to that.
There, within sounds of hens clucking, children making low screams, and snippets of conversation in whatever language is spoken wherever this takes place. The find is immediately disassembled using screw drivers, some hex wrenches and little else. Once I saw an electronic meter.
Wiring was promptly removed and cast aside.
Occasionally sandpaper is used, along with gallons of fresh water. Recently the show presented a discarded Toshiba air conditioner. Lugged back to the shop was a stained, rusty object, with some actual parts of air conditioners -- a compressor, a reservoir for coolant, some valves, a fan and a large propeller.
The air conditioner was completely unassembled, scraped free of paint and a screen was washed with water. More clucking and screaming. After the gross dirty was removed, using ubiquitous white power. (Soap I imagine), the parts were spray painted with a red primer followed by a coat of white paint.
The cast aside electronics were cleaned with water and some removed fittings were reattached to the mechanism by braising. Wires were reattached, someone soldered a circuit board, and that's that.
Then a rusty tank of coolant, I'm assuming, was connected to the brass fittings and turned on. No telltale hissing was noted.
The last scene is people huddled around an apparently working air conditioner.
Here's what I think. This is only a theory. (I don't want legal suits,)
Someone higher up the food chain selects new or slightly used consumer electronics. He or his minions take them and dip them in mud, and possibly daubed them with some other easily removable soil. Then they plant the "broken" whatever in a trash heap.
The alleged renovator is told were the whatever is and he tromps around until he finds it and heads home of the red-tiled workshop. The mud easily rinses off in most cases. So do many "rust" stains etc. Then the magic happens.
Ear Buds caked with muck come out looking brand new, as does most everything they renovate. So, this renovation is theater. Entertainment. As such, who am I to criticize?
