For a Better World: Fugitive Denim

For a Better World: Fugitive Denim

Rachel Louise Snyder takes a moment to ponder before answering the question whether she thinks of herself as a writer or a journalist.

"It depends on whose asking. I would probably say a writer, but I do journalism to make ends meet." There is no doubt she relishes the freedom that comes with not being bound by a constant deadline, of having more time to spend on a story, to tease out the small details, to get to what she calls "the nitty gritty of life."

Snyder has just returned from Bangkok where she gave the birth to her daughter Eliana Jazz Snyder Burton. The 39 year-old has lived in Phnom Penh since 2003, with the exception of several trips overseas to research her book, Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade.

Fugitive Denim is another in the growing canon of books about things. Salt, fish, coffee, computers, they have all been done. Snyder's is about the everyday clothes we wear, how they are produced, who makes them and the lives these people live.

"I think books getting back to the origin of something are popular at the moment because capitalism as a system is divorced from manufacturing, and I think there is a real push from people to get back to the source of things. You particularly see that with food. I think clothes are the next obvious place to go."

"The title was my idea. It was the biggest fight over a title that my publishing company had ever seen, or so I am told." Fugitive Denim is an industry term for dye that has not been set correctly and runs. "To me it was seems to be a good statement of global industry and following after crazy trade rules."

Published in the United States in late 2007, the book will soon be out in the United Kingdom, Japan and China. It has also recently become available in hardback at Phnom Penh's Monument Books. This means Snyder could be in for what some say is the ultimate compliment for a writer in Cambodia, having pirated photocopy versions of her work floating around second hand book stores across the capital.

Snyder's life story, as she puts it, "is a boring story because I have always written. My Grandfather was a writer. My Uncle is a writer. My mother when I was a child made me keep journals. Writing was an obvious place for me to go." In her first year out of college she wrote regularly for the Chicago Tribune and various women's magazines, supplementing it with tutoring and waitressing. She went to Vietnam on a number of assignments for the Chicago Tribune in the mid-nineties and first came to Cambodia as a side trip on one of these.

As is the case for many Westerners, her visit to Tuol Sleng, the former school turned Khmer Rouge torture chamber, is still a vivid memory. The museum was shut and she and her travelling companion bribed a guard to let them in. "It was just my photographer, who was also my best friend, and I in that building alone. It was raining and I can just remember wanting to be out side. Even though it was the middle of the day I was scared to be in inside. The place haunted me after that."

She helped edit First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung who she met in 1997. "We were friends and she needed help with some of the English," recalls Snyder. She returned to Phnom Penh in September 2003 with the purpose of covering the Khmer Rouge trial. Lack of movement on that front, caused by amongst other things the political stalemate gripping the country in the wake of the national election, ended those intentions.

"That's when I learnt about this bilateral trade deal and that it was going to expire when Cambodian joined the World Trade Organisation." The deal Snyder refers to, the main focuses of the Cambodia chapters of Fugitive Denim involved the Clinton administration linking Cambodia's export quota for textiles to the United States in efforts to eradicate sweatshops.

"It was incredible to me to think a third world country was actively trying to have a sweatshop free environment and all these other developing countries were looking to Cambodia and looking to see if can could be. To me it was a political, human rights and environmental issue all at once."

As the assassination of high-profile labour leader Chea Vichea in 2004 graphically demonstrated, Cambodia still has a long way to go in terms of promoting labour standards. Industry observers agree, however, that the deal provided the impetus for the government to work in improving conditions in the garment industry, responsible for approximately 80% of the country's total exports.

She believes this progress is now under threat from the recession in the United States, the market for the majority of Cambodia's garment exports. "Wherever you have economic pressure, the first things to go are labour law and social conditions. This is a crucial time for Cambodia. They are at risk of losing this incredible experiment."

What started, as a series of articles and radio stories about the garment industry here eventually became a book. In addition to Cambodia Fugitive Denim roams from New York and Italy to Azerbaijan and China. Despite the global focus it is the chapters set in Cambodia which have generated the strongest response from readers, says Snyder.

Certainly she believes they were amongst the hardest to research. "Oh God, yes, it is incredibly difficult trying to get information here. People are just reticent to talk. I am not sure why that is. The lack of a history of the free press coupled with the general Asian way of keeping things close to the chest and not wanting to lose face. All those things contribute to an atmosphere that is not conducive to getting reliable information."

As she discovered this reluctance to talk is not just confined to Cambodia. "Hands down the hardest chapter was the one about chemicals. You have all the terminology and trying to get to the bottom of what chemicals in our clothes are bad as opposed to what just sounds bad. Then there is getting this to be fact checked with an industry that is even more secretive than the garment industry."

"One way I got around this was to focus the book on narrative," she reveals. "The book is not really heavy on hardcore journalism the same way that a lot of other books on globalisation are." As she puts it, "I also wanted to it to be accessible, to appeal to the Wall Mart crowd, which is really half my family."

For Cambodia, this meant examining the industry through the lives of two female garment workers, Nat and Ry. "I went to one of the main factory areas with an interpreter and hung out there at lunch time everyday for about a week. I talked to probably 30 factory workers. Nat and Ry were the only ones that were assertive enough to ask me questions."

"Ry in particular, was interested in the world. I remember her asking me about women in Afghanistan because I had said that I had been there. She was a great character which is what you want, someone who thinks for themself."

"She was also missing all of the fingers on one hand, which I had initially thought was from an accident in a garment factory but was actually a birth defect. I mean here is a woman working with her hands and she only has one, to me there was a background story that was worth telling." Snyder spent the next two years getting to know them. "Journalists usually do not get to spend that amount of time on a story, and once you get past the standard questions what you find are diverse, complex and rich lives."

Nat and Ry, who Snyder still sees from time to time, are both supervisors now in different factories. "They go in and out of prosperity. I say in the book, and it was at least true until the US recession started impacting on the industry, that garment workers are the rising middle classes of Cambodia. I don't think this generation will see massive changes, but their kids will."

Snyder has shared her years in Phnom Penh with husband Paul Burton, a former British Royal Commando who does contract security work in Cambodia. "We met right after September 11. I was going to be sent to Afghanistan, and he was teaching a course for journalists and aid workers on hostile environments and how to deal with them." She adds with a smile, " I took the course and kept the professor."

"I think it is really difficult," she says of the decision about whether to stay in Phnom Penh now that their daughter Eliana Jazz is on the scene. "The best thing is that children are really revered here. You walk into a store with a baby, and people act like you have just brought them a gift."

"The worst thing is you know you can raise her in a physically better environment, with better medical services and then you have to think am I being selfish for raising her here."

"The other factor is that you have to try really hard not to have your child grow up to be a privileged little king because they grow up with staff around them. I want her to grow up doing her own laundry and washing her own dishes." Perhaps the only aspect of their lives that is a definite is they will continue to travel. "I am not a career expat, but I also do not want to live in the US forever. I want Eliana to have an international footprint."

"There are a lot of countries out there to explore. Probably somewhere in Latin America, either Mexico or Argentina, as I speak the language which is a big bonus. I will not live somewhere again where I am not fluent in the language. It is too frustrating." As to her feature writing plans, she is writing a feature on Cambodia for National Geographic magazine and is a hundred pages into a novel, the content of which she would prefer not to talk about.

"There is also another non fiction book I will pursue. It is science based about memory, numerology and the brain. It is quirky and funny and has a caste of true life characters." Is Phnom Penh a good place to be a writer? "Only if you are incredibly self motivated. Because it is so hot, it is so easy to get sidetracked. It is very languid. People here work all the time, but they work very slowly and I am not sure that lends itself well to writing." Then again, it does give Snyder time to focus on the nitty gritty of life.

Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade is available in hardback from Monument Books. You can check out more of Snyder's writing at her website www.globalgrit.com [3]

Third Edition of The Advisor, 19th June