In 1997, the Hollywood epic blockbuster "Titanic" (Hong Kong translation of Titanic) caused a sensation at the box office when it was released in China, with a giant ship, iceberg, disaster, human nature, and love, and Jack and Rose's love became the highest state of eternity in the eyes of the audience.
In 2021, 24 years after the film's release, a deleted clip appeared in front of people.
A Chinese man in a Tang costume with pigtails is lying on a wooden board floating on the surface of the sea. When he saw the light emitted by the flashlight on the lifeboat, he desperately shouted in Cantonese: "I tie it!" (I'm here). The ship's five Roja Rodeways commanded the sailors to take him to the lifeboat.
Chinese on the Titanic?
Have all these Chinese been rescued?
Why aren't there any survivors' stories of their own?
What is the end of these Chinese?
In 2013, Luo Fei, an Englishman who has lived in China for more than 20 years, is a well-known documentary filmmaker in the industry. During a casual conversation with historian Schwank, it was learned that there were Chinese survivors on the Titanic. Thus began to trace this "secret of Chinese" that even Chinese did not know.
After multi-party forensic investigation, researcher Schwank and his team finally completed the filming of the documentary after four years and visiting more than 20 cities in 4 countries.
The documentary, titled "The Six," chronicles the team's examination of the Chinese survivors on the Titanic.
A Titanic passenger registration form contained the names of eight Chinese, all living in third class, all of whom were sailors by profession, ranging in age from 24 to 38. The first publicity of this information confirmed the fact that Chinese on board the Titanic.
Six of the 8 survived, with a survival rate of 75 percent, the highest of all races in the same ship.
When all 705 survivors arrived at the port of New York, they were sent to the resettlement site and hospital, and the story of each survivor was almost reported and recorded, but the 6 surviving Chinese disappeared.
Where did they go?
Schwank's research team finally found their names on the labor list of a British merchant ship called the Anita.
Because they could not speak English and did not have identification documents, six Chinese were denied entry into the United States as stowaways. Having just experienced a shipwreck, they were put on a fruit merchant ship bound for Cuba, and then transferred to several British merchant ships to continue working as sailors.
Chinese workers have always been known for their hard work, and they are one of the main laborers in the construction of railways and other hub projects in capitalist countries. After extracting the value of chinese workers, Westerners believed that the presence of Chinese people seriously affected the employment rate of Caucasians, and the "Chinese Exclusion Action" and the Chinese Exclusion Act began.
Countless Chinese workers were expelled like rags after they ran out. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have no place for them. This caused the 6 survivors to drift around like duckweed, working as coolies on different merchant ships.
Overseas life was miserable, and China at that time was in the historical stage of war, and for this group of Chinese workers, it was a dilemma. The only way to find your own way out is to find your own way out.
In order to survive in the United States, many Chinese have bought fake identification documents through their settled compatriots, resulting in a situation where a person has several names, which brings great difficulties to the research team to confirm their identity.
Fang Rongshan is the only person in the whole film with clear information, but whether he is one of the survivors has never provided a final evidence.
There was a name on the register called "Fang Lang", and when the film crew went to find Fang Guomin, who claimed to be his descendant, he said that his father's name was Fang Wing San , and found his third name " Fang Sen " in a stack of old photos.
Fang Guomin learned that his father had been on the Titanic was told to him by others, and his father never said a word until his death, and even Fang Guomin's mother had never heard of her ex-husband having such an experience.
What was Fang Rongshan's life like?
When he was a teenager, he went to a foreign country to survive, and he married and had children at the age of nearly sixty.
He is very decent in his son's memory, always in a suit. He did everything he could to take care of his people, as his marriage broke down by sponsoring his brother's family of five to settle in the United States.
Such a taciturn man, in the face of humiliation but never admit it, when he heard the English call him a "lowly yellow dog", the seventy-year-old immediately threw a punch and knocked the other party to the ground.
His life is like an unsolvable mystery, the age difference between father and son is too large, and many secrets are brought into the grave with the death of Fang Rongshan.
The film crew traveled to Fang Rongshan's hometown of Taishan, Guangdong Province, where they met his nephew and grandson, and heard the only poem he had personally told about the suspected shipwreck:
The sky is high and the waves are wide, and a stick saves me,
Brothers together a few, wiped away tears and smiled huh.
In fact, it doesn't matter whether Fang Rongshan is Fang Lang or not, he is a symbol in history. His whole life is the blood and tears of countless Chinese workers writing photos.
More than a hundred years ago, he traveled the ocean to make a living, and suffered discrimination and humiliation. In order to stay here, forged identity documents. He remained silent all his life, fearing that he would be deported for revealing his true origins. And he has the brand of a traditional Chinese man, has the dream of returning to his hometown, even if his life is hard, he still takes on the responsibility of the eldest son and takes care of the family members who have come to his relatives.
When other survivors came to the attention of the world, he was equally humble as an ant. They fought in the times and were forgotten in history.
In the cold sea, he waited for the rescue by will, and in the days to come, he gritted his teeth and stepped on one suffering after another, paving the way for future generations with footprints with blood and tears.
Fang Guomin met with the descendants of his father's life-saving commander, Luo Wei, and exchanged souvenirs between the two men. This is the fate of the underworld, without Luo Wei, there would be no Fang Rong Mountain, and there would be no today we see this history reappear in the world.
At the end of the film, the Fang family came to the sea where their ancestors set out to pan for gold, and the water lamp drifted farther and farther on the sea.
Looking back more than a hundred years ago, groups of Chinese people set off from this pier to go to a foreign country. When they experienced the injustice and tribulations of fate, what kind of courage did they have to survive until they reached the end of their lives.
The whereabouts of the eight Chinese on board the Titanic are roughly as follows:
Fang Lang, Fang Rongshan (Fang Sen), settled in the United States, died in 1986.
Ah Lam, also known as Lam Coy, disappeared after being sent back to Hong Kong by the British in 1920.
Choog Chip died of pneumonia in London, England in 1914.
Lee Bing, originally from Taishan, was interrupted after immigrating to Canada.
Ling Hee disappeared in 1920 after disembarking in Calcutta, India.
Cheong Foo, too many duplicate names to be sure.
Lee Ling, who died in a shipwreck.
Len Lam, who died in a shipwreck.