張彥在中國. 照片由Ian Johnson提供。

對於中國人來說，Ian Johnson的中國名字“張彥”，似乎更為熟悉和親切。實際上也如此張彥。戴著眼鏡、穿著中國衣衫的張彥，總是混跡在中國普通人當中，甚至是底層社會中，若不是頭髮，很難一下發現他是”老外“。他的眼光和筆觸卻又觸及到中國社會和中國人的深層脈絡中。也因此，2001年，他因一組法輪功報道而獲得普利策新聞獎。中國人的宗教與精神問題，正是他非常關注的一個話題，為此，他花了五年時間，在中國採訪了許多宗教活躍人士，並認為中國正在經歷一場精神的復甦。在其2017年出版的著作《中國的靈魂：後毛澤東時代的宗教復興》（The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao）（中文版2019年在台灣出版），他寫到：

「中國正在經歷一場心靈精神的復甦，其規模有如十九世紀美國的『大覺醒』宗教運動。這個發展中的國家正因為劇烈的社會與經濟變遷而徬徨不安。人們湧入新而疏離的城市，在這樣的城市中，他們既沒有朋友，平日生活也願意互相關照的力量。人們殫精竭慮想回答這些問題：我們為何在這裡？什麼才能讓我們真正感到快樂？從個人到社群乃至於國家，我們該如何安身立命？什麼才是我們的靈魂？」

張彥2001年獲普利策獎的一系列報道。

同時，作為一名外媒記者，他又敏感的發現，這個古老國家深層，蘊含著的一種革命的力量，正在努力改變這個國家。2007年出版的《野草：底層中國的緩慢革命》（Wild Grass）（中文版2017年在台灣出版）中，他講述了三個底層中國的故事，三個關於正義、權利和命運的悲劇。

他的最新作品《 Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, 》（《星火》暫無中譯本）寫了一群在中國進行秘密地下歷史記錄的創作者，有學者艾曉明、獨立紀錄片導演胡傑、記者江雪等等，儘管在習近平時代，對公民的監和言論的控制進入一個前所未有的時期，但是這群人依然偷偷記錄下那些官方所不允許記錄的歷史。

2023年，張彥和中國記者江雪，以及其他一些人，共同創建了中國民間檔案館，致力于提供中国人民在恢复国家历史这一运动中的重要文件、影像资料、博客和其他出版物。

他所記錄的所有這些故事，正是中國社會和政治進步的希望之所在。

《波士頓書評》就張彥新書《Spark》採訪了他。採訪問題為中文，回答為英文，書評沒有做中英文互譯。

張彥在中國. 照片由Ian Johnson提供。

1. 最有趣的是這本書名《Spark》，中文名是《星火》，熟悉林昭故事的中國人都知道林昭正是因為這本短暫的《星火》雜誌而被判刑，最後失去生命。這個名字也很容易讓人想起毛澤東著名的文章《星星之火，可以燎原》。所以說《星火》在現在中國人這裡，有兩重相反的意思，特別具有諷刺意味。你把自己的書取名《星火》，是否有特別的用意？還是特別喜歡《星火》雜誌？

The title comes from the magazine, Spark, which was where Lin Zhao published two poems, but also was the home for several outstanding articles on the problems with how the CCP runs China. Although it was published in 1960, just 11 years after the founding of the PRC, the students who wrote the articles in it identified key problems that still resonate today, such as lack of freedom of expression, farmers’ inability to own land, and the arbitrary nature of leaders—Mao then, Xi today. Sparks “rediscover” in the 1990s also makes it a touchstone for the citizen history movement that has sprung up since then. It inspired Hu Jie to make two of his greatest films (Searching for Lin Zhao’s Souls, and Spark), and inspired people like Liu Xiaobo, Cui Weiping, and many others. Thus the magazine’s impact goes far beyond the two issues that its editors created so long ago. (As a small clarification, I would also note that Mao did not coin the phrase “星火燎原”. This is an idiomatic expression that he used in one of his essays. Certainly it would have been known to the students who founded the magazine, but in their memoirs they don’t refer to Mao, but rather to the well-known expression, which pre-dates Mao.)

2 您筆下寫了一系列保存中國民間歷史的人物，記者江雪、獨立紀錄片導演胡傑、作家唯色和楊顯惠、學者艾曉明等等，這些人各有各的職業和經歷，在你書中，是什麼讓你把他們放在了一起？他們身上有什麼共同的東西？

They are all key members of China’s counter-history movement and represent different aspects of it. Some write books, others write articles or novels and poetry, some are artists, and others are documentary filmmakers. I wanted to show the breadth, scope, and ambition of these citizen historians and the broad array of interests—not just the Cultural Revolution or other well-known disasters, but also ethnic issues, and even the Covid lockdowns. In other words, it’s not just about events of the last century but about current events too because history is fluid and can include events from last decade, last year, last month, or last week.

3 你是什麼時候注意到中國有這麼一群人的存在？

I began to pay attention to this when I returned to China in 2008. I began a series of Q&As for the New York Review of Books, which you can find on the Review’s site, https://www.nybooks.com/topics/talking-about-china/ (and which is available without a paywall at ChinaFile’s website (https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive ) . I wanted to know what was going on in China and so talked to some of China’s best-known public intellectuals. The first person I interviewed was Yang Jisheng and he explained the growing importance of this and how this had become possible in recent years. This isn’t to say that in earlier decades people hadn’t tried to tell the true history of the PRC, but they were scattered and very few. What I began to realize was that very simple digital technologies, such as PDFs and digital cameras (in other words, not social media) made it possible for ordinary people to publish magazines and books, and film documentary films. For people today, in 2024, this might seem obvious, but it was something new in the 1990s. Before that it wasn’t possible to do this sort of work.

4 我看到推特上說，中國民間檔案館上線了，可否介紹下這個檔案館。這個檔案館主要收集什麼資料？如今進展如何？你為什麼想做這麼一件事。

China’s counter-history movement goes far beyond the well-known figures I wrote about in Sparks. The China Unofficial Archives, www.minjian-danganguan.org, is a way to give a platform to the broader movement by making available for free and in a professional, neutral way, the hundreds of public access books, magazines, and films.

The main target audience is people inside China. In researching my book I found that people often had an ad hoc understanding of the past. They might have been given a book by someone, for example, on the landlord campaign. But they didn’t realize that many other people had published on this topic. Or they knew of one film by a director but didn’t realize that the director had made other films. The archives are designed so that you can filter our holdings by “creator” (创造者)， theme, era, or format. So you can sort for “film” and “Cultural Revolution.”

A secondary target audience are people outside China who want to research certain topics but who don’t necessarily have access to a major research library. The archive also rebuts the claim made by some people that history has been erased in China or that Chinese people are not researching the past anymore—that Xi has complete control over society and made it impossible. Some popular western books make this dubious claim, but these archives show that this is nonsense.

Right now, however, the archives are still in their infancy. We have about 850 items, which is not bad but it’s still only a fraction of what we will have in a few months. We are in the process of digitizing 170 new films, which should be up soon. We are also posting all issues of 昨天 and 巴山夜雨, which are two important counter history journals. We are also collaborating with another NGO, the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) to digitize several hundred books. They can help us make all our magazines searchable (right now they are not searchable PDFs) and to index the author by title, author, and topic.

5 奧威爾在《1984》中說，誰控制歷史，誰控制未來。你作為一個1984國度的旁觀者，您是如何理解這句話的？

In China, the government rules by something that political scientists call “performance legitimacy.” This means that the party says it’s doing a great job and can “prove” this by pointing to its great track record. This is how the past decides the future: by showing you did a great job in the past; you can lay claim to rule in the future. China’s citizen historians want to complicate this picture by showing what really happened in the past. They aren’t all anti-CCP, but they want people to realize the party’s true record. Right now their audience is small, but my feeling is that it's growing, especially due to recent missteps, such as the zero-Covid policy and the economic slowdown.

張彥在中國. 照片由Ian Johnson提供。