The Untold Story of Six Chinese Titanic Survivors You Never Heard Of

It has been almost two centuries since the British passenger liner the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after colliding with an iceberg on its maiden voyage to New York City. It is one of the most famous disastrous events in modern history.

There were more than 2,000 people on board the cruise liner including the crew and more than half of the ship’s passengers died along with its captain. The design and construction of the ship was state of the art and the technology used in it’s operation meant that it was considered to be unsinkable.

Titanic remains in the ocean floor of the North Atlantic

The Tragedy of The Titanic

Despite having more than 2,000 people on board, the ship only had lifeboats that could accommodate half of the passengers and despite this shortcoming, during the time of the sinking only 20 of the existing lifeboats were said to have been used since the others were inaccessible.

Sadly, it was also reported that most lifeboats weren’t even actually filled to maximum capacity before setting off, signaling that perhaps even more people could have been potentially saved.

The Titanic hit an iceberg just twenty minutes before midnight, splitting the vessel in half and it wasn’t until 1985 when the remains of the ship were discovered on the ocean floor. Thousands of valuable artifacts were found in the ship, most of which were put up for auction whilst the others have been preserved and put on display in a museum.

The historic tragedy has been etched in our minds despite happening almost 200 years ago which is in part due to the film adaptation by James Cameron in 1997 starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet with the movie becoming the second highest-grossing motion picture of all time.

Titanic’s film adaptation was released more than 20 years ago

Mystery Chinese Survivors

As depicted in the film, the Titanic carried some of the richest people in the world at that time along with tons of lower class people from different nations in the hope of starting a new life in the United States. Most of these people either survived or lost their lives during the tragedy with most of the survivors boarding lifeboats whilst those who jumped from the sinking vessel froze to death in the icy waters.

Amongst the survivors, there were also six undocumented Chinese men who survived the sinking of the ship at that time and thanks to a new documentary feature by Arthur Jones and Steven Schwankert entitled The Six, research was carried out about these Chinese men who had been forgotten all this time.

Thanks to the new documentary feature by Arthur Jones and Steven Schwankert entitled The Six, wherein they actually researched about these Chinese men who are forgotten all this time.

It is said that due to the racial inequality back in the 20th century, the Chinese survivors weren’t a part of the documented list of survivors. In an interview, Jones, while doing a research in China, said that most of the survivors were claimed but no one claimed the Chinese, making it seem like they were meant to be forgotten.

Over the past few decades, there have been tons of life stories that were published about the lives of those who survived the tragic event, most of them relayed by the survivors’ descendants. Schwankert came across the six Chinese survivors while researching on it but it was always a dead end; their records had been seemingly erased. Finally, it was found out that there were indeed eight Chinese men who were on board the vessel, listed as third-class passengers.

The Six

The researchers found that these Chinese nationals were professional mariners who had been traveling to the United States for work. One of the men was found clinging on to a large piece of wood whilst the other five managed to get onto a lifeboat.

It was also mentioned in the research documents that the five Chinese men were in the same boat as the owner of the Titanic, Joseph Bruce Ismay, who did testify at that time that there were indeed Chinese survivors on the lifeboat with him.

It is theorized that the records may have been removed because of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States; the Chinese survivors may not have been granted permission to enter the country, so they might have been transferred onto another ship headed towards the Caribbean. The Chinese survivors also weren’t a part of the survivors who underwent a screening at the Ellis Island in order to receive medical assistance.

https://youtu.be/5-0gpvPHaZs

The production and publication of the documentary on these mysterious Chinese individuals is in the works with an estimated release date of next year.