MCLC: plans for Titanic replica floated

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: plans for Titanic replica floated
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Source: Sinosphere, NYT (1/13/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/plans-for-a-replica-of-titan
ic-floated-in-china/

Plans for a Replica of Titanic Floated in China
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

A company in southwestern China has announced plans to build a full-scale
replica of the Titanic, the passenger ship that famously sank in 1912. The
Seven Star Energy Investment Group, based in Sichuan Province, said it
would spend spend 1 billion renminbi, or about $164 million, to build an
ocean liner that would be moored on a river bank as a tourist attraction.

The original ill-fated ocean liner has been the subject of immense
fascination in China, particularly after the release of the James
Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic,” which was the highest-grossing film in
China for more than a decade.

Seven Star is a little-known private company involved in electricity
generation. It grabbed headlines after it held a news conference Sunday in
Hong Kong to announce plans to build the Titanic replica based on the
design of a sister ship, the Olympic.

Seven Star said it planned to have the ship, which will be built at the
China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation’s Wuchang shipyard, serve as the
centerpiece of a theme park in Daying County, in Sichuan Province. The
company said it intended to complete the park, which was first announced
at a trade fair in October, by 2016.

Su Shaojun, chairman of Seven Star, told
<http://www.zgpaw.com.cn/pabb/2014-01/13/c_125995589.htm> the state news
agency Xinhua that the replica ship would include features that recreate
the experience of hitting an iceberg. The “pinnacle of the spirit of human
responsibility” was revealed as passengers tried to save one another as
the ship went down, Mr. Su said.

While the Titanic is remembered in museums in the United States and
Europe, he said, there is nothing comparable in China. “We chose to
rebuild the Titanic in China so that this same spirit will be developed
and carried on in the East,” he said.

“The boat we are building, it’s not for sailing,” Mr. Su said when asked
whether the Titanic replica would be safe. “It will be a totemic symbol of
the Titanic spirit, eternally berthed at the bank of the Qi River.”

The company isn’t the first to attempt a reconstruction of the ship. Last
year, the Australian magnate Clive Palmer announced plans
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/global/a-new-titanic-on-the-dra
wing-board-but-wheres-the-captain.html> to build a Titanic II at a
shipyard in the Chinese city of Nanjing. His Blue Star Line intends to
launch the ship by 2016.

James McDonald, the global marketing director for Blue Star Line, said in
an interview on Monday that the company expected construction of the
Titanic II to get underway later this year. “The difference with ours is
that we are a working vessel that will sail all around the world,” he said.