Documentary shines light on Chinese Titanic survivors

Poster of The Six: The Untold Story of RMS Titanic's Chinese Passengers [Photo/Mtime]

2021 marks the 109th year since the "unsinkable" Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic Ocean, and thousands of lives were lost in frigid waters.

The 1997 blockbuster film Titanic showed the luxurious lifestyle of the upper class and a heart-wrenching romance between two young lovers. But few know that among the passengers, there were actually eight Chinese, and six survived the disaster.

What happened to them, and where did they go? Why have they been forgotten for so long? The documentary The Six: The Untold Story of RMS Titanic's Chinese Passengers seeks to provide answers.

The six Chinese survivors

Eight Chinese sailors boarded the third class cabin of Titanic on April 10, 1912 at Southampton Port in the UK, with tickets purchased by their employer.

Only four days later, an iceberg in North Atlantic Ocean struck Titanic and the ship began to sink. Several gates leading to the first-class cabin, where lifeboats were placed for emergency use, were not opened promptly, leaving third-class passengers fending for themselves.

Among the six survivors, Lee Bing, Chang Chip, Ling Hee and Ali Lam boarded a folding lifeboat together. Chong Foo got on the last lifeboat, just before Titanic sank completely. Fang Lang (also known as Fang Rongshan in Mandarin), the last survivor, grabbed a door and floated on open water before he was rescued.

"I've always admired the Chinese guy on the door, or on the piece of wood. That became the inspiration of how Rose was saved," said James Cameron, producer of The Six and director of Titanic.

"Six out of eight Chinese passengers survived, that's a 75 percent (survival rate)", said Arthur Jones, director and writer of The Six.

"So it shows a certain ingenuity and inventiveness. They had their hopes and their dreams as well and they were traveling across the ocean to realize that," adds Cameron in the film.

Where did they go?

The group's miraculous survival did not bring an end to their ordeal. After landing on Ellis Island, New York, they were expelled from the US because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a controversial law at the time that barred Chinese immigrants from entering the US. Shunned, they six were sent to Cuba on a fruit merchant ship. They then found their way to the UK to work as sailors.

Along the way, Chang Chip passed away from pneumonia in 1914 and was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery in London. Ali Lam was deported to Hong Kong or Shanghai and his whereabouts and potential descendants remain unknown. Ling Hee worked as a sailor on a boat and went to India, and no more was heard of him. Cheong Foo is still unidentified, because there were too many names similar to his. Lee Bing reached Canada after many twists and turns and opened a local cafe. Fang Lang is the only survivor that returned to the US, later becoming a businessman.

James Cameron, director of Titanic and producer of The Six. [Photo/Mtime]

Parallels

Titanic may have sank long ago, but prejudice against people of Chinese descent still remains, said Jones.

Not much records remain of their story, and in the words of Cameron, "they were kind of shoveled off and hidden, expunged from records."

In records published after the shipwreck, many false claims persisted, including "reports" of Chinese survivors dressing as women to fight for spots on lifeboats. Rumors of a similar nature are still copious today.

"We used to talk about who was the hero and who the villain on Titanic. But now, what we need to talk about is racial discrimination, it also needs to be voiced," Jones added.

Tom Fong, son of Fang Lang and also featured in the film, said his father fought racial discrimination and derogatory comments made against his ethnicity his whole life. Though many family members of survivors were reluctant to share their stories, due to stigmas experienced by their ancestors, Fong decided to do so, hoping the audience could learn the true story of Titanic's Chinese survivors and perhaps reflect on what's happening in the US today.

"Because if you don't know the history, it will repeat itself," he said.