TEXT B Since the Titanic vanished
beneath the frigid waters of the North Atlantic 85 years ago, nothing in the
hundreds of books and films about the ship has ever hinted at a connection to
Japan -- until now. Director James Cameron’s ’200 million epic Titanic premiered
at the Tokyo International Fihn Festival last Saturday. Among the audience for a
glimpse of Hollywood’s costliest film ever descendants of the liner’s only
Japanese survivor. The newly rediscovered diary of Masabumix
Hosono has Titanic enthusiasts in a frenzy, the document is scrawled in 4,300
Japanese character on a rare piece of RMS Titanic stationery. Written as the
Japanese bureaucrat steamed to safety in New York aboard the ocean liner
Carpathia, which rescued 706 survivors, the account and other documents released
by his grandchildren last week offer a fresh -- and poignant -- reminder of the
emotional wreckage left by the tragedy. Hosono, then 42 and an
official at Japan’s Transportation Ministry, was studying railway networks in
Europe. He boarded the Titanic in Southampton, en route home via the US.
According to Hosono’s account, he was awakened by a loud knock on the door of
his second - class deck with the steerage passengers. Hosono tried to race back
upstairs, but a sailor blocked his way. The Japanese feigned ignorance and
pushed past. He arrived on deck to find lifeboats being lowered into darkness,
flares bursting over the ship and an eerie human silence. He wrote:" Not a
single passenger would howl or scream." Yet Hosono was screaming
inside. Women were being taken to lifeboats and men held back at gunpoint. "I
tried to prepare myself for the last moment with no agitation, making up my mind
not to do any- thing disgraceful as a Japanese," he wrote. "But still I found
myself looking for and waiting for any possible chance of survival." Then an
officer shouted, "Room for two more " Hosono recalled:" I myself was deep in
desolate thought that I would no more be able to see my beloved wife and
children." Then he jumped into the boat. When Hosono arrived in
Tokyo two months later, he was met with suspicion that he had survived at
someone else’s expense. The culture of shame was especially strong in prewar
Japan. In the face of rumors and bad press, Hosono was dismissed from his post
in 1914. He worked at the office part -time until retiring in 1923. His
grandchildren say he never mentioned tile Titanic again before his death in
1939. Even then, shame continued to haunt the family. In
newspapers, letters and even a school textbook, Hosono was denounced as a
disgrace to Japan. Reader’s Digest reopened the wound in 1956 with an a- bridged
Japanese version of Walter Load’s best seller. A Night to remember, which
described , Anglo - Saxons" as acting bravely on the Titanic, while "Frenchmen,
Italians, Americans, Japanese and Chinese were disgraceful." Citing his father’s
diary, one of Hosono’s sons, Hideo, launched a letter -writing campaign to
restore the family name. But nobody in Japan seemed to care. The
diary resurfaced last summer. A representative for a US foundation that plans to
hold an exhibition of Titanic artifacts in Japan next August found Hosono’s name
on a passenger list. A search led him to Ha-ruomix Hosono, a well- known
composer, and to his cousin Yuruoi, Hideo’s daughter. She revealed that she had
her grandfather’s dairy as well as a collection of his letters and postcards. "I
was floored," says Mixchael Findley, cofounder of the Titanic International
Society in the US "This is a fantastic, fresh new look at the sinking and the
only one written on Titanic stationery immediately after the
disaster." The information allows enthusiasts to rearrange some
historical minutes, such as which lifeboat Hosono jumped into. More chilling,
the account confirms that the crew tried to keep foreigners and third - class
passengers on the ship’s lower deck, effectively ensuring their name. Tile diary
cannot correct injustice, but Hosono’s family hopes it will help clear his name2
The Titanic foundation also hopes to capitalize on the diary and the movie to
promote its upcoming exhibition. To that end, Haruomix Hosono, the composer, has
been asked to give a talk at next month’s public premiere of Titanic! The diary
cannot, of course, match Cameron’s fictionalized epic for drama and intrigue.
But at least Masabumix Hosono’s tale really happened. In the sentence "Even then, shame continued to haunt the family" (paragraph 6), the word "haunt"has the meaning of ______.