Everyone’s familiar with the story of the unsinkable ship that sunk; the Titanic.
During its time, the controversy of how the largest ship at that time broke into two and landed on the Atlantic sea bed on April 12, 1912, had sparked much worry, pain and even rumours.
However, with the release of Titanic, the movie, many people instead fell in love with the story in entailed.
Unfortunately, for something that happened more than a decade ago, there were many details and facts that were somehow distorted from history. And one of the many stories that was never told properly was the story of the six Chinese men who survived.
According to NextShark, a documentary called The Six will be revealing the true story of these six Titanic survivors.
These men are Lee Bing, Fang Lang, Chang Chip, Ah Lam, Chung Foo and Ling Hee.
Source: AsAm News
The amazing mastermind behind this show is Cambridge graduate Arthur Jones whom has worked with Chinese people multiple times for his various documentaries.
The director said,
“Of the 700 survivors of the Titanic disaster, the six Chinese men never told their stories. Why were they ignored?”
Indeed, being the biggest story for over a century now, it is a wonder as to why such a special thing wasn’t reported.
“The global press loved and continues to love the Titanic story, chronicling every little detail, right down to the size of the ashtrays in second class. But nothing was reported about the Chinese passengers.
“Who were they, why were they on board and what happened to them after the disaster? And how did so many get on a lifeboat?”
Due to the lack of reporting on these survivors, it seems that the six men disappeared without a trace.
Source: SBS
It took Arthur’s team thorough research and widespread travelling just to learn more about them. They went all over the states, Canada, the Great Britain, Hong Kong and then ultimately China.
Of course, it wasn’t easy.
“Chinese genealogy is notoriously difficult, particularly in English-language documents such as shipping records, where names are often inconsistently transcribed.”
To ease some of their findings, they set up a social media campaign on whoarethesix.com. This led to them finding one of the survivors’ son!
Together with the help of the son, they went on to dig out the truth. It seems that eight Chinese men boarded the Titanic using one ticket (with all their names on it).
Source: NextShark
Apparently, they worked on cargo ships travelling between China and Europe before they decided to move to the United States to start a new life.
That was when they bought tickets aboard Titanic.
Well, the six of them did reach New York but the other two, Lee Ling and Len Lam, unfortunately did not survive. However, life for the six men didn’t go as planned at all.
Source: NextShark
When they arrived in the States, they were immediately barred from entering the country thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) which does not allow immigrant from China into the country.
“Other survivors were welcomed to the US with open arms. But these six were given no support and [were] widely mocked in the press.
“Rumours swirled that they dressed as women, or pushed children away to get on lifeboats or hid like stowaways in the lifeboats.
“But we found they didn’t hide or dress as women – they all had valid tickets and there is no evidence of them taking seats from children and women.”
Source: NextShark
“Six Chinese guys made it off the Titanic alive, and 24 hours later were written out of the story. That wasn’t an accident. That was deliberate.
“It’s something that the culture of the time made happen.”
Well, they were hidden from all stories prior to this thanks to the racist constitution of that era but now it is their time to shine, albeit much later than expected.
Watch the trailer to this eye opening documentary here:
