My father survived the sinking of the Titanic

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fang Lang was one of six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The six faced racism and a hostile immigration system when they reached America. Unlike other survivors, their stories remained untold for decades. We hear from Fang Lang's son Tom and Arthur Jones whose documentary called The Six tells the story of those six Chinese survivors. Also John Maynard Keynes, the economist who transformed the world, changing attitudes in Mexico towards disabled women plus Nigeria’s war against indiscipline in the 1980s and the contested legacy of one of the most revered Arab poets of the twentieth century.

Photo: Tom’s father, Fang Lang. Credit: LP Films.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson and the witness history team.
0:06.6	This week John Maynard Keynes, one of the foremost economic theorists of the 20th century.
0:12.1	His mind was so quick, so raping. of the Arab world's foremost poets of the 20th century found himself posthumously
0:27.7	embroiled in Syria's civil war.
0:30.5	Plus fighting against in discipline in 1980s Nigeria and four disabled rights in Mexico.
0:37.0	You know when we talked about a disabled person and there's always this narrative around that we are not enough.
0:46.0	We're like this broken beings.
0:48.6	We are not beautiful enough.
0:50.1	We are not worthy enough.
0:52.4	That's all coming up later in the podcast, but we begin with an extraordinary story from an event
0:57.4	which has captured the imagination of generations, namely the sinking of the titanic.
1:02.3	The supposedly unsinkable luxury liner hit an iceberg
1:06.2	in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912. That story is well known. Books, films, legends abound. But Viv Jones has been hearing of a lesser
1:16.4	known aspect of the Titanic Saga and Viv is here now Viv.
1:20.3	Hi Max, so more than 1,500 people died when the Titanic sank, but what's less widely known is that among the 700 or so passengers who were lucky enough to survive and make it to lifeboats, Six of them were Chinese. Their rescue was not the end of their ordeal. Once they reached America, they faced prejudice and a racist immigration system.
1:41.0	One of these six men was recorded in the passenger list as
1:43.9	Fang Lang. He was only 17 when the disaster happened and I've been speaking to his
1:49.2	son Tom Fong who told me his story? It's sort of hard to believe that.
1:54.0	I'm the direct descendant.
1:56.0	It was something that happened over a hundred years ago.
1:59.0	Tom lives in the American state of Wisconsin,
2:01.0	where he runs a Chinese restaurant with his family.
	...

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