China News Weekly reporter / Kui Yanzhang
In the dark, icy water, half of a huge ship has sunk in the water.
Ship wrecks and human corpses float around the huge ship.
Following the call for help, a lifeboat drove over, and the crew shot the flashlight light over and saw a Chinese man with braids lying on the door panel.
This is a scene that was deleted in the global sensational movie "Titanic" 24 years ago.
In the documentary "Six" about the Chinese who survived on the Titanic, this scene was revealed for the first time.
The famous director James Cameron is the producer of the documentary "Six Men".
He recalled in the film that the Chinese man lying on the door panel was the inspiration for the scene of Rose lying on the door panel at the end of "Titanic" he directed.
"Six" was led by British director Luo Fei and historian Schwank for 6 years, and led a team of more than 20 people to Beijing, Taishan, Hong Kong, London, Southampton, Bristol, and more than 20 worldwide. City shot.
At the same time as the film is released, Schwank's book of the same name will also be released in the near future.
For the first time in films and books, the situation of the eight Chinese on the Titanic on the night of the shipwreck and the fate of six of the survivors are disclosed in more detail for the first time.
Difficult search
In 2014, Luo Fei heard for the first time "there are six Chinese survivors on the Titanic" from an old friend and British maritime historian Schwank.
"There are more than 700 survivors on the Titanic, basically all of them have records. (Some people) know who they are, which country they are from, and who their family members are. There are only these 6 Chinese. It seems that no one has ever known."
Luo Fei now lives in Shanghai and has lived in China for many years.
He used to be China's chief reporter for the Hollywood Variety Magazine, and later changed to a director, working for National Geographic, BBC, and Discovery Channel.
He also filmed the documentary "Poseidon Incident" related to the shipwreck.
At first, Luo Fei had little interest in the Chinese survivors on the Titanic.
"I've already shot a film with difficult sea issues, and I'll make a bit of repetition. Titanic is also a topic that is too mainstream. Do I want to shoot this?" Luo Fei recalled to China News Weekly, and he was worried that it would eventually be shot. A traditional documentary with only old material and old photos.
In hesitation, Luo Fei asked the Chinese friends around him whether he wanted to do this.
Everyone is curious: there are still Chinese survivors on the Titanic?
This aroused his interest, "It may be a good topic, and I can also talk about many different things through the Titanic, such as racism, entanglement of people, father-son relationship, etc." Luo Fei told China News Weekly "Memories.
But Luo Fei found many scholars who studied the Titanic, and the advice he got was almost all: Don't shoot.
Now that more than 100 years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic, it is impossible for any survivors to survive.
In addition, since most of the overseas Chinese laborers at that time were men, and their lives were poor and turbulent, they probably had no descendants at all.
In other words, this is an issue on which it is difficult to shoot new things.
Luo Fei decided to give himself 3 to 6 months, if he could find the information increment, he would shoot this film, if not, he would give up.
At that time, there were only two yellowed pieces of paper about the Chinese survivors on the Titanic. One was the passenger list on the Titanic, which recorded the names of 8 Chinese passengers: Fang Lang, Lee Bing, Ali Lam, Chang Chip, Choong Foo, Lee Ling, Ling Lee and Len Lam.
The youngest is 24 years old and the oldest is 37 years old.
The other is a list of survivors of Chinese nationality, with only 6 people left.
The name of Ali Lam on the list of survivors caught Luo Fei's attention.
On the list of survivors, Ali Lam's spelling resembles Ahlam.
After researching with his team, he believed that the correct spelling method is Ahlam more likely. The passenger should be from southern China, and Ah means "阿".
"We think this is already very interesting, I think we can surpass this existing content, there are many things we can do." Luo Fei recalled "China News Weekly".
Another major breakthrough also followed.
On a website related to the Titanic, there is a netizen whose ID is Tom K. Fong, who claims to be the offspring of the survivor Fang Lang.
It's just that the ID has been cancelled at that time.
Luo Fei's team changed different mailbox suffixes and tried to send an email to Tom K. Fong.
Two weeks later, they contacted him and finally used some supporting evidence to confirm that Tom K. Fong was the son of the survivor Fang Lang.
After this breakthrough, Luo Fei finally decided to officially start filming the documentary "Six People".
The fate of survivors
Based on interviews with Fang Lang descendants and written materials, Luo Fei, Schwank and others, like playing a jigsaw puzzle, pieced together the life of Fang Lang.
Fang lang has used multiple names.
In Fang Lang's descendants, his name is Fang Rongshan.
When he boarded the Titanic, his name was "Fang lang".
Luo Fei does not know why he chose this name. What is particularly puzzling is that his signature on the ship register is often "Bingxing".
Before leaving the UK, Fang Lang had already started working on the ship.
When he boarded the Titanic, Fang Lang was registered as 26 years old in the age column. In fact, he was only about 18 years old.
When Fang Lang boarded the ship, he filled in as a sailor.
On April 14, 1912, the night after the Titanic hit the iceberg, Fang Lang followed the lifeboat and stayed on Ellis Island in the United States for less than 24 hours.
He was unable to enter the country due to the "Chinese Exclusion Act" of the United States at that time.
After that, he worked on a fruit-carrying cargo ship named "Annita" for 8 years, and then entered the United States illegally.
In the United States, he tried to open a restaurant and a suit shop, but ultimately failed.
After failing to start his own business, he worked as a waiter in a restaurant until he was over 80 years old.
Fang Lang rarely talked about his own experience on the Titanic in his later life.
According to the information held by Luo Fei's team, he only mentioned it sporadically to his nephew and two or three friends.
This kind of caution may be related to Fang Lang's identity as a smuggler. "Maybe he himself feels that he should not influence them (family). If you talk too much, they will also be in some danger." Luo Fei told China News Weekly.
It was not until Fang Lang was in his 60s that he obtained legal status in the United States and was therefore able to get married.
His wife is also Chinese. She transferred from Taishan, Zhejiang to Hong Kong and came to the United States. She is more than 40 years younger than Fang Lang.
The relationship between the two after marriage was not good.
Fang Lang likes to send the money he earns to his family in China.
In the end, the two broke up.
In Luo Fei's investigation, about the other five survivors, only brief information was learned.
Among them, Chang Chip was not prevented from entering the United States by the Chinese Exclusion Act due to illness. He has been living in the United States for medical treatment. He is the only one of the six Chinese survivors who stayed in the United States for a long time.
In the United States, he has been in different hospitals for many years.
Later, he went to England and eventually passed away in England.
In addition, Luo Fei and Schwank will also combine the historical background at that time to speculate on the fate of some survivors.
At least three of the survivors have worked as a sailor in the UK for many years after leaving the Titanic.
After the First World War, some British trade unions set off a wave of anti-Chinese. The three survivors are likely to leave Britain in this wave and go to Hong Kong, Shanghai or India.
As for the two Chinese passengers who were killed, Luo Fei and Schwank also tried to find information.
They learned that after the sinking of the Titanic, Canadian ships went to explore and salvage the corpses, which were buried in a small Canadian city called Halifax.
According to data, a "Japanese" was buried in the cemetery of the Titanic victims in Halifax.
"But on the Titanic, there was only one Japanese who was not dead. So if the buried was really an Oriental, it should be one of the two Chinese victims." Schwank analyzed China News Weekly.
Restore the night that hit the iceberg
On the morning of April 10, 1912, Southampton Harbor, England, was crowded with passengers and people seeing off.
Holding a third-class ticket number 1601, worth 56 pounds, 9 shillings and 11 pence, the Chinese Fang Lang and his seven companions stepped onto the gangway one by one.
Before boarding the ship, their profession was a sailor.
On the ship, according to Luo Fei's investigation, their identities were different from the previously widely disseminated "burners", they were just ordinary passengers on the ship.
They finally landed in the third-class cabin on the lower deck of the giant ship.
Two days later, after passing through the port of Queenstown (now Cove) in Ireland, the Titanic sailed towards the wide and far North Atlantic.
At this time, there were a total of 338 first-class passengers, 279 second-class passengers, 704 third-class passengers, and 908 crew members on board with the eight Chinese.
At 23:40 on April 14, 1912, the huge ship hit an iceberg.
Luo Fei speculated that among the eight Chinese, Choong Foo was the first to realize the danger and fled to the No. 13 lifeboat.
According to data, there is an Oriental in lifeboat 13 who does not speak English.
"This is in line with the characteristics of Choong Foo. His English is particularly bad, and Chinese can't write words." Luo Fei analyzed China News Weekly.
During Choog Foo's journey to lifeboat No. 13, Fang Lang and two other Chinese passengers fell into the water.
Two other Chinese passengers drowned. Fang Lang found a floating door panel and was rescued by the No. 14 lifeboat.
The remaining four Chinese people boarded the folding boat C to escape.
At 3:30 in the morning the next day, a cruise ship named Carpathia (also known as the Carpathian) arrived at the scene of the shipwreck. Rescue work continued until 8:30 in the morning.
In the end, of the 2,224 crew and passengers on the Titanic, only 705 survived.
At the same time, media reports began to be overwhelming.
Regarding the four Chinese who escaped on the lifeboat C, a widely reported statement is that they escaped into the lifeboat pretending to be women, hid under the chairs, and squeezed the escape space for women and children.
Against the background of Western racism and China's criticism of the national inferiority, this statement was once convinced.
Luo Fei checked almost all the information and did not agree with this statement.
"Most of the statements in the report are just that passengers'heard' that Chinese people are posing as women, instead of seeing them with their own eyes. An Irish boy who witnessed the scene said that'Chinese people are wearing black clothes' instead of seeing them in person. Women’s clothes.” Luo Fei told China News Weekly that in his opinion, this was probably a misunderstanding. At that time, Chinese men with braids would make people think they were pretending to be women.
In addition, according to some information, lifeboat C is not full, and there is no situation of seizing the seats of women and children.
In order to restore the scene of the year, Luo Fei's team rebuilt a ship according to the drawing of the C folding lifeboat at a ratio of 1:1, and asked volunteers to ride on the folding boat to restore the scene of the year.
According to experiments, if there are four adults hiding under the chair, it is impossible not to be discovered by other passengers.
Looking back now, Luo Fei found that this filming was completely different from his previous experience in filming traditional documentaries.
Sometimes he needs to do physics simulation experiments, and sometimes he needs to use different tools like a historian to try to unravel the mystery of the Chinese survivors on the Titanic.
"I have always said that our model is not a historical documentary, but a detective story." Luo Fei told China News Weekly.
(Intern Xu Ying also contributed to this article)
China News Weekly, Issue 13, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing