If faced with a disaster, will you charge forward like a soldier of the people's children? Can you face the hope of survival like a gentleman and choose women and children first?
In the early morning of April 15, 1912, as a second-class passenger on the Titanic cruise ship, Masaru Hosano, the Minister of Transport of Japan and the director of the Railway Institute, who faced the decision of life and death, chose to survive.
ants are greedy for life, let alone people? Hosano Masaru's choice is understandable, but his greed for life has ruined the honor of himself, his family, and even the entire nation.
because he faced death, he not only fled in a panic, but also disguised himself as a woman and used the gentlemanly demeanor of others to fight for his own safety, so that people despised and accused him of what he did. After the
incident, newspapers and other public media commented on him even more: " Titanic , sinking the dignity of a Japanese."
His escaping behavior seems to be solid evidence, so Masako Hosano can neither refute nor refute in the face of worldwide condemnation.
So the lucky man who survived the accident, Masaru Hosano, was destined to be doomed because of a single thought.
He has to bear all the time, more serious psychological pressure than the pain caused by the sinking of the Titanic cruise ship itself.
through this he became famous, but notoriety that everyone shouted. He was regarded as a disgraceful scum by the entire nation, and because of this, he was removed from administrative positions and even stripped of his samurai status.
His actions have been written into newspapers, letters and even textbooks in schools in our country, becoming a bad example of educating future generations to reflect.
Hosano Masaru's behavior should be said to be incorruptible.
But what we still need to pay attention to is that, according to his own diary, in the process of escape, due to the problem of different cabin levels, it will directly affect the probability of passenger survival. Provided some support during the debate.
Similarly, in the face of public praise, is this really the case? Has Hosano text really become a standard escapist? Is there any secret in this?
After a hundred years, if we want to restore the situation at that time, we still need to start from the moment when the cruise ship was killed.
The unsinkable cruise ship Titanic
On April 10, 1912, the Titanic , known as the "miracle in the history of the world's industry", set sail for the first time, because it was the largest and most luxurious passenger cruise ship in the world at that time. Therefore, it has the reputation of never sinking.
Hosano Masaru, who was then Minister of Transport, was on the ship at this time, and he was working on a trip to Europe to investigate the railway network, which is why he was able to obtain a second-class ticket as an Asian.
Until five days later, that is, in the early morning of April 15, 1912, Hosano Shinto, who was sleeping peacefully in the second-class cabin, was awakened by a knock on the door. Before he knew the specific situation, the waiter gave him a life jacket. Escaped on his own.
So he wore his sleeping clothes, and flowed down to the third-class deck with the chaotic crowd. It was his choice that paved the way for Masako Hosano's own disgraceful behavior to be more prominent.
leaves limited life to women and children, a mandatory requirement of the captain and a voluntary choice of adult men.
But on the third-class deck, in addition to the above constraints, a new problem emerged: the crew blocked the third-class passengers on the deck, and because it was the lowest deck, they could not escape by life rafts .
Hosano text is different, he is not willing to betray his own honor, but he is earnestly looking for the opportunity and strength to survive. So when he learned that there were two vacancies in the No. 10 lifeboat , he jumped and won a guarantee of survival for himself.
Later, people analyzed that there was fog at sea at that time, which caused the refraction of light to make the crew misjudge the distance between the ship and the iceberg.
also, for similar reasons to mirage , when the Titanic is about to sink, receiveThe ship they were calling for was also a phantom cast by a ship farther away.
In the face of so many emergencies, so many real problems, the sinking of the Titanic is a matter of course.
However, the equal treatment of natural disasters is not equal to the social equality, because the passengers in the third class were ordered at gunpoint to wait for news on the deck.
But because Masano Hosano was an Asian in second class, he happened to be standing on the deck of third class, and because of the stereotype , the crew also blocked him from the life raft.
The situation is urgent, and he learned that the No. 10 life raft can accommodate two crew members, while Hosano Masaru is a second-class passenger, so he has relative priority in the choice of survival in the face of third-class passengers.
Compared with the other passengers who were silent, Masano Hosano was even more panicked. When faced with a life-and-death decision, when faced with the opportunity of a lifeboat carrying a survival position, he made a choice with direct action and jumped directly onto the lifeboat. .
Hosano Masaru was wearing the nightgown he used when he was sleeping, with a coat on the outside, and his thin body made it difficult to distinguish his gender in strange clothes. I am afraid that in the dark night, people misunderstood his gender and identity.
Finally Masano Hosono and the others were rescued, but his hard days were still to come.
He returns to Japan, but faces charges from a European gentleman, rescued woman, for disguising himself as a woman and defrauding him of his chances of survival in a false way, as he climbed aboard a lifeboat and rudely pushed other people in desperate need of rescue people.
refers to
. However, after going ashore, Hosano Masaru could not hide his gender and identity, and his name suddenly became synonymous with the coward who escaped in the world media, and his deeds naturally spread back to Japan.
So he was plunged into the abyss of inexorable humiliation, living his life in utter shame. When he returned to Japan on the "Carpathian" cruise ship, people suspected that he had robbed women and children of their chances of survival.
In 1914, the Japanese nation, which valued honor and integrity at that time, could no longer bear such a person who was accused by thousands of people as a high-ranking official of the state.
Hosano Masako was also unable to regain his high-ranking status because his actions violated morality and honor, and he did not get any better until he retired as a half-shift office worker in 1923.
After his death, " China Ocean News " made a final evaluation of him: "Titanic", sinking the dignity of a Japanese. "
It is worth mentioning that although everyone has the same attitude towards Hosano's disreputable actions, there are still two different accusations against Hosano's specific actions. One of
is that the American writer Archibo- Gracie IV's expression in the novel "The Truth About the Titanic": At the time of his death, Masaru Hosino disguised himself as a woman, and at the risk of being found and killed by sailors, he climbed into the lifeboat carrying women and children. One point is consistent with rumors that he was identified as being unable to hide his gender and identity after being rescued by the Carpathian cruise ship.
And through this, society generally sees him as a disgraced fugitive.
Therefore, the reporter in his country commented on him: some people are alive and he is dead, and some people are dead and he is still alive.
The man who left the chance of survival to women and children on the Titanic will live forever in In the hearts of the people; in the hearts of the people, Masaru Hosano has long been dead. It is better to die bravely than to live in shame.
But another point of view is reflected in the notes of Masaru Hosano: he also died in the process of escaping. He has been humbling all the time. When he made his final call and climbed to the top deck and was about to die with the ship, someone behind him called him to take a lifeboat to survive.
He was still hesitating until a first-class passenger jumped into the life raft After that, he followed to get on the boat to escape.
This is persuasive. After Hosano's notes were discovered in 1941, by comparing them with the records of other passengers, it was found that he did not have any despicable behavior at that time.
But this is two years after Hosano Masaru passed away in 1939. At that time, his disgraceful identity was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it was not easy to reverse the case.
Later, people found that although his defense was logical, the information provided by a white gentleman in the same boat was completely contrary to it, which also made the whole thing confusing. After being rescued,
, a white man, accused Hosano Masaru of pushing down others during the escape, jumped into the lifeboat himself, and survived among the women and children.
This argument has also been widely recognized by European society, and has been included in the textbooks of European countries, accusing the Japanese of not being gentlemanly. The argument of
was broken in 1997 in the US " Time Magazine ", which was certified by the Titanic Research Consortium in the United States that Masano Hosano boarded the No. 10 life raft, and the British passenger who accused him was the No. 13 life raft. escapee.
At the same time, according to rumors, there were originally two seats on the lifeboat No. 10. Among the third-class passengers waiting to ride, Hosano Masaru's identity as a second-class passenger has priority.
According to Hosano Masaru's own handwriting, in order not to tarnish the glory of the Japanese, he was ready to meet the end of his life, but he still did not give up hope of survival.
Until someone told him that the lifeboat could fit two people, he waited until the first-class passengers got up, and with the permission of the sailor, jumped into the lifeboat. The completely different logic of
, the development process of events that can all make sense, coupled with the power of rumors and the dwarfed impression of the Asian race, have resulted in bad results. The rank of
cabin and people's consciousness
During the whole accident process, it is not difficult to see that in addition to showing the aura of human nature and gentlemanly demeanor, people's rescue mode is divided according to the rank of the cabin.
The environment decides people's thinking. So we can interpret Hosano's behavior pattern at that time: the fear of death is unavoidable for anyone, but the honor of the nation, the dignity of the individual and the coercive requirements of the captain made him unable to escape directly at that time.
He already has the consciousness to meet the end of life, but the will to survive keeps him looking for the possibility of survival. So he succumbed to the social environment and reality at that time. For the same reason,
got a special chance to survive as a second-class priority, which was his advantage in using the rules rationally.
reflected this in his own notes as, before boarding the ship, he saw the first-class passengers board the lifeboat first, and then he jumped on the lifeboat with the consent of the crew.
From these two points, we can understand him as a normal person who is eager to survive and an ordinary person who conforms to the rules.
As for the so-called man disguised as a woman, it may be due to his short stature compared to Europeans, the disheveled clothes he hastily surviving, and even panic and dazed screams in the face of unexpected accidents.
The lack of these nuances and the stereotype of Asians at the time may be one of the reasons why he was accused.
Similarly, the enforcement of sailors' coercive measures has gone in different directions in the face of different groups.
Hosano Masaru strayed into the third-class deck. When he, like other third-class passengers, faced the sailor's order not to escape and his behavior at gunpoint, Hosano's panic was even more exacerbated.
Although all the men on board, including the world's richest man at the time, Astor IV, and the world's second richest man, John Jacob Astor, , voluntarily gave up the opportunity and chose to let women and children escape by lifeboat .
But that doesn't mean their options are backwards, there's no option, on the contrary, they have options, and most people, who were given up from the beginning, knew they were given up People who are probably can only rely on instinct to escape.
is like a third class passenger. Crew blocks third-class passengers in the bottom layer of armorOn the board, they even directly locked their only escape door, giving them no chance of survival.
Just like the movie Titanic deduces, Jack and Ruth are different, not only in gender, but also in hierarchy, in the power of choice when facing the test of survival.
believes that, as a bystander of ordinary people, he can also understand Hosano Masaru's choice at that time.
Because we are facing difficulties, we don't have so many choices. When we finally face the opportunity to choose, we often cherish it more and don't want to let it go, even if this choice makes us embarrassed.
Maybe we can't understand the complete thinking of the people at that time, even if the behavior of Hosano Masako seems to be understandable today.
So we still can't tell why Hosano Masaru did not refute in the face of worldwide criticism. But if we start from the conscience of knowing good and knowing evil, and define Masano Hosano as a normal person who knows fear and fears death, maybe we can give him some understanding.
It was only after Masaru Hosano passed away that his notes were discovered and made public that people knew the real details of the accident. His descendants were therefore desperate to restore his reputation.
It is reassuring that although Hosano Masako's non-excusing brought shame to his entire family, the world's misunderstandings imposed on them did not affect their respective development achievements.
The famous Japanese musician Hosoba Haruoomi is the grandson of Hosano Masaru. Before the release of the classic movie "Titanic", he released to the public the family letter written by Hosono Masaru when he was rescued. A hint of possibility.
However, after nearly a century, this belated and strong evidence can no longer bring anything to Hosano Masaru himself. He passed away in 1939 with huge trauma and permanent regret.
We still can't understand, if Hosano Masako did not do these accusations, then why didn't he bravely stand up and refute in the face of slander?
Global Times pointed out that Hosano's no longer refuting, may be because the accident killed many people, and he came back alive, always feeling guilty in his heart.
If people could understand him like this at the time, maybe his life would have changed differently.
But I have to say that when life is classified according to the cabin, and the right to survive is given priority, it is still the saddest thing in the Titanic incident.
