Among the fun things we’re doing here in Las Vegas, we took the kids to see Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition on display at the Luxor, which lets you experience the history of the ship through the objects recovered from the wreck. My kids were in awe at the various items they’d brought up from the bottom of the sea, from plates to ceramic toothpaste containers to perfume that — incredibly — still managed to give off fragrance after 90 years at the sea bottom. There’s even a giant bulkhead that they managed to bring up in one piece, which was just amazing to see. As you go into the exhibit, they hand you a “boarding pass” containing the name of a random passenger, and at the end you can look at a list to see if you’re alive or dead. Mine was unfortunately one of the third-class passengers who didn’t survive…
One passenger who was lucky enough to live was interesting to us, since he was the only Japanese on the ship. Masabumi Hosono was an employee of the Japanese Transportation Ministry sent to Russia to study railroads, and after finishing his assignment, he prepared to cross the Atlantic on the Titanic. When the ship had its fateful collision with an iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14, Mr. Hosono was asleep, and didn’t wake until someone knocked on the door of his second-class cabin to tell him to put his life-vest on. He eventually made his way to the lifeboats and, hearing an announcement that there was room in lifeboat no. 10, he jumped in. His life was saved, but he might have wished it hadn’t been: he was attacked in the Japanese press for living when so many others had died, and fired from his job at the ministry, and some even called for him to commit suicide to atone for his dishonorable act. If he’d died, the world of music would have been less bright: he was the grandfather of Haruomi Hosono, one of the founding members of the influential band YMO, which helped bring Ryuichi Sakamoto to the world stage. Anyway, the Titanic exhibition was fantastic, and if you’re going to be in Vegas any time soon, I highly recommend you go see it.
Do you know the story of the Japanese passenger on the Titanic?
