Film to reveal fate of China’s Titanic survivors

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More than 1,500 people died and only 705 survived when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912. Few people know that there were eight Chinese on board and six of them were rescued.

However, after they were barred from entering the United States and left the day after they reached Ellis Island, a lot of mystery has surrounded what became of these survivors and what they experienced in the disaster.

Titanic in Turin, Italy. /liners.dk Photo

Filmmaker Arthur Jones has tried to tell their full story in documentary “The Six”.

The eight Chinese passengers aboard Titanic were all sailors who found themselves out of work because of the coal strike in Britain. During the sinking, they all boarded lifeboats to flee the ship. When the six who survived the perilous descent into the icy North Atlantic finally arrived in New York, they were detained before taking a ship to Cuba.

Chinese survivors' ticket. /liners.dk Photo

The Chinese Exclusion Act was in place in American from 1882 to 1943, prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers as they were viewed as contributing to the nation’s economic woes.

“The Six”, currently in production, suggests that the Chinese survivors’ stories remained little told because of the discrimination they faced.

Jones and his team found details of what happened to them in journals at archives in the UK and US, and they eventually visited later generations of the Chinese survivors of Titanic.

1070km