Reporting and writing does not always come from a place of passion.
Often we read published pieces that betray a haphazardness in reporting — the words exude a subtle distaste. Possibly even worse is a piece published solely for the money, a disinterested labor. There is a difference between work created merely for works’ sake rather than out of a labor of love.
To our benefit, this notion is conspicuously absent in the work of Ian Johnson — Pulitzer-prize winning writer, journalist, and, as I learned, a gifted and engaging conversationalist.
“If I only had one book in me that I had to write in my life, this one was it,” he told me, referring to his 2017 book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. The candor with which Johnson spoke about his writing process was inspiring. He was recently awarded a 2020-2021 National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars fellowship for a history book he is writing about China.
“My goal was to pull back the curtain on China to Westerners,” said Johnson. “To reveal that it isn’t as radically different from us in the West as we may think. I want the book to capture a yearning for values here in China, rather than a pursuit of secularism or materialism.”
Johnson worked intermittently in China as a foreign correspondent and reporter for the likes of The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. “In the 1990s,” said Johnson, “my interest in the East and in religion really developed when I was working with a charity building temples in China. Most people, when they think of China, they think about the political repression or the economy. Religion in China was a deeply under-reported story, and I had a personal interest in it.”
During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, conversations surrounding contemporary China became more public and widespread.
As a global economic titan, China’s stature was certain; yet a question of values remained. The dichotomy between compassion and monetary striving seemed to be out of balance, which piqued Johnson’s attention.
In 2009, after recognizing this gap in religious reporting in China, Johnson acquired a journalist visa and began to investigate. By this time, the idea for The Souls of China was well in place, over a decade in the making. Johnson set out to discover the glue that holds China together, to look past the economic and political components that have come to define China.
In other words: Johnson began seeking out the things that mattered most.
“First I had to pin down what religious groups I wanted to focus on, which people and faiths I wanted to write about,” Johnson told me. “I narrowed in on Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religions in China. Christianity was part of it too, but I didn’t want to overemphasize it or else it would feel too Westernized.”
Johnson spent a great deal of time interviewing pastors, priests, and community religious figures in different parts of China, ultimately reporting on a diverse and expansive set of individuals. By interviewing people within both urban and rural environments, Johnson captured both the past and the future of the nation. The result was diversity of reporting on both an ethnographic front as well as geographic.
To further immerse himself in the story, Johnson spent time living amongst the communities he investigated. This fly-on-the-wall approach afforded him access to stories, interviews, and relationships that otherwise would prove difficult to attain.
“By spending months on end living with the people I wrote about,” said Johnson, “I could witness stories happen in real time, rather than just hearing them second-hand.”
Because Johnson was in China and not the United States, public records were sparse (FOIA is non-existent). This placed the onus upon himself to conduct grassroots reporting.
Though he was able to visit many religious centers and speak on-the-record with religious leaders and low-level government officials, Johnson recounted how, oftentimes, he could not take photos or use information for newspaper articles — apparently, appearing in the Western media has a negative connotation, compared to appearing in a book.
The Chinese government proved to be an obstacle to his reporting — lack of government records and documentation — though Johnson overcame this by embedding himself within communities and forging relationships with those who shared their stories, many of whom he remains in contact with today.
“With a journalist visa, the worst that could happen was getting kicked out of the country,” said Johnson. “The real worry was getting those I interviewed in trouble with the government. One interview I had to do at 6 a.m. because that person was under police surveillance. We had to do it before the police arrived.”
Though he did hire help for transcriptions at times, Johnson operated primarily as a one-man team: he researched, wrote and even lived out much of the stories he reported on.
On his writing process, Johnson explained in detail.
“Write as much as you can, as soon as you can,” said Johnson. “This helps you remember the small things. Colors, feelings, appearance. In terms of organizing for a book, it helps to write things out in scenes. This is a benefit of writing immediately, too. Scenes and details give you a strong sense of place.”
The impact of the book was primarily aimed at Western audiences. “Within China, I only hope that I didn’t get anyone in trouble,” Johnson said with a chuckle.
The book itself is long — over 450 pages — and Johnson, in reflection, mentioned that he could have made it a bit shorter. “Shortening it by 10-20% could have been good,” he said. “I didn’t get that advice in the editorial process. Editors aren’t as involved or invested as maybe they used to be, even in big publishing houses.”
The ability of the book to continue portraying an accurate snapshot of China remains an aspiration for Johnson. “My hope is that this book holds up and can still be read for years,” he explained.
“That’s what good non-fiction should do,” said Johnson. “It should be something you can revisit years down the line, and it still holds relevance. Sure, China is changing all the time, but that’s my hope for the book.”
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