Joe Bennett on good writing and where underpants come from

Tracing the largely unseen underwear to the land of its origin is probably the closest to discovery we can make these days. But for New Zealand columnist and travel writer Joe Bennett the reasons for the pursuit weren’t so illustrious: the measly price tag on the five-pack set from his local store made him wonder who would possibly profit from the transaction. He, like the rest of us, has no idea how a pair is made. He is however aware that they are made from cotton and cotton grows on bushes in ‘rabbit-tail tufts.’

Where does the rubber for the elastic band come from? Who are the men – and the middlemen – involved in the making and the marketing? Who takes a call on the accommodating and absorbing qualities of the gusset? What are the logistics that go into packaging and transport? Even though he considers it a foregone conclusion their impact on the occasional sexual partner, the scarlet hearts and racing cars on the Y front serves to arouse his interest further. When everything else except man is made in China, his curiosity about the commercial and industrial processes on which his easy existence depends lands him there.

Close discoveries: Joe Bennett (Photo from Stuff.co.nz)

Okay, ‘Where underpants come from’ was published in 2008 and many things have changed since then: a client from the engineering sector whom I am filming for currently informs me that the days of cheap labour – and poor quality, fortunately – are long over. ‘They worked really hard and met our specifications to the millimetre,’ I quote the chief project manager who was based out of Shanghai for a year to get things going. I told him it was probably because he was ex-army. Quality, I thought, was the bête noire of the Chinese. In the next hour the good colonel made me realise that my view was, as Bennett put it, ‘prejudice born of ignorance and propaganda.’ Well. ‘I wouldn’t be back here if I weren’t sure,’ he assured me. I believe him – it’s a bridge he is making.

While following his new pairs to their ancestral looms and parent Jukis form the narrative thread, the book also unveils the intricate web of cold calls and eager contacts, shifty industry visits and curious exchanges that form the crux of global trade. ‘Where underpants come from’ is useful as a people manual for anyone looking to outsource from China or enter into any sort of commercial relations. Through his visit to hinterland factories he shares with us a ‘tasting of a smidgen of rural China’; we are brought closer to the rustic folk, their urban dreams and working culture. Bennett finds out that the average duration a worker stays in the factory is two years – which is roughly the same period they remain in manufacturing units in India too. I have a textile major as a client and this one came as a stumper for its universality and lack of any specific reason. That is unless workers everywhere thought it was time to marry when they missed a hike in drudgery.

Blue hates earthquakes and cameras (Photo by Joe)

There are other interesting parallels with India like road traffic conditions and driving habits. Witnessing his second accident within 24 hours, Bennett proclaims the horn ‘enfeebled by overuse’ and calls the rear view mirror ‘largely decorative’ – which flies for us too. Corruption is endemic and everyone expects to be bribed; in India this expectation regardless of dispensation has stayed. Government sponsored sting operations have only ensured that related transactions have moved into sanitised environments. The people account from the restaurant remains mirabile dictu for the shared laughs and the random onlooker who trains the author to use chopsticks. These are people and I am familiar with people, stresses he. I couldn’t have agreed more. Some others like the Uighur issue – into which he delves with consideration erudition and panache – is not only alive to this day but kicking as well.

Arms like turkey wattles. Agricultural Trabants. Tarted up heritage. Whirling dervish dances as performed for heads of state or photographers from National Geographic magazine. The analogies that set me chuckling are numerous. As were the weighty introspections that set me on the contemplative path: the synthetic nature of tourism – the way an agreed notion of tourism is arrived at and promoted and sold to people. His disillusionment with the red light area Patpong throws light on a disconcerting fact we all chose to overlook to satiate our own lusts, including that to wander:

‘Like so many of the famous big things, the epitome things, the draw cards of the world, geographical, architectural, spiritual, sinful, their bigness rests in our imagination. Their imagination has been swollen by words, words that eventually doom the visitor into a damning ‘Is that it?’ It’s the tendency to mythologise that lurks at the heart of all religions, all advertising, that soars beyond the mundane and lures us forward.’

The author interview

Where has the rest gone to? (A handout photo)

In short, ‘Where underpants come from’ was the best gift I got last Christmas. The sister – the second of the four – who gifted it was worried if I’d like it – she had heard me talk about many writers but not Joe Bennett. Right, if I were to line up all the travel writers I know, Joe wouldn’t be there. There will be Bill Bryson, Pico Iyer and Paul Theroux. Jack Kerouac looking a tad groggy and Bruce Chatwin on a charm offensive. John Steinbeck, Graham Greene and Jan Morris shaking their heads. There will be the sombre Colin Thubron and even the famously sesquipedalian Tim Mackintosh-Smith. SK Pottekkatt, my favourite vernacular writer of the genre would lounge in his mundu and light up a filter-less Charminar. But no Joe. To find out what I was missing – and maybe even how I missed – I got into a spot of virtual chinwag with Joe.

Why are you not known like Pico Iyer or Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson or…?

I can’t answer that.

Your first novel King Rich came out last year. More are on the way. Is travel writing over for you?

I wrote four travel books. I don’t know if I’ll do any more. Right now I am working on a memoir of sorts.

Novel, to quote you, because of its emotional nature, allows one to get closest to the truth. How so? You were pretty emotional when your dog Jessie died in ‘Where underpants come from.’ 

Fiction is different from non-fiction. The techniques of putting words together are the same, but the imaginative process is different. The books I’ve read that matter most to me are almost all fiction. They cut closer to the heart of things.

(By Iain McGregor for Stuff.co.nz)

Many of your books have you on the cover. Is it kind of making up for your antipathy for the social media? 

I do despise the social media. But I also don’t design my book covers. The ones with me on them are nearly all collections of my newspaper columns. In New Zealand I am probably best known as a columnist.

Travel literature is booming in India – both reading as well as writing. Share some trade secrets with those who want to be like you (me, for example). 

I don’t think I have any trade secrets. For me the business of writing is the business of rewriting. It could always be better, tighter, simpler. Never finished, only ever abandoned. If there was a formula for good writing all good writing would be the same. The only good advice I know is Orwell’s.

Ever been to India? Plan to visit sometime? A book reading perhaps? Or the Taj?

I’ve never been to India. Was planning to do so in 2009 but the publishers suggested they’d prefer a book on Dubai, so I went there instead. And that was the last travel book I wrote. India is so vast I wouldn’t know where to begin. But yes, I would like to go there one day.

One question for you: how did you get to be called Thommen? It sounds half Norwegian, half Portuguese/Spanish. Though now I think of it, didn’t Portugal colonise Kerala for a while?

Thommen, as far as I know, is old Kerala for Thomas. But now that you say it…

China flag motif – the big golden communist star leading four smaller stars of social classes – on red underwear made for a great cover too. Imagine the furore if Bennett had traced his underpants to India.