Chang and Eng: A Messy American Dream

understand that day? Okay, Pa, you can trust me. If the name sounds familiar. Opie grew up to become Happy Days actor and Hollywood movie director ron Howard. To bring in the tourists, mount Airy does its best to recreate the Maybury experience. You can eat at Snappy Lunch, which was mentioned on the show that the same as the port Untamemad show. You can ride around in a replica Maybury police car, or you can spend a couple of

hours at the Andy Griffith Museum at our house. Every day we have they're recorded and rewatched all the time. Growing up, we watched it in reruns. It was my father's favorite show. Six thirty PM, Channel five. But not many of these people know that the price of admission to the Anti Griffith Museum will allow them entrance into another smaller museum just downstairs in the basement. The eight dollars prize includes the Siamese Twin exhibit as well as

Andy Griffith Museum. Take a peek at It The Siamese Twins, mount Airy's second and third favorite sons. Simon Selection, Yeah, a part of them. This is fascinating, It really is. I don't know if they died together or I'm trying to figure out what happened at the end of their lives. Tanya Jones runs both places and talks about a common reaction from the people who visit the exhibit downstairs. The surprise is why is it here? And it's here because

this is where they settled and raised their families. Chang and Ang Bunker, the once world famous joined twins, were born in Thailand called Siam at the time in eighteen eleven, and later in life, settled right here in Mount Airy, many years before people even heard about Mayberry. This episode is about those remarkable twins. It's a complicated and not

always happy story, but this story is real. So I mean they weren't a part of the show or anything though, were they definitely know they was only any different show. I'm Murrah go, and this is mobituaries. This MOPI Chang and Ang Bunker, a messy American dream. This is Francis and Caroline. I've seen you before, You've seen him on television. I'm CBS. I'm Francis Hall, okay, and I'm at a family reunion here in mount Airy, North Carolina. And he must be the youngest Bunker here. Yeah, oh my gosh,

look at him. Okay, So it's not my family reunion, but I'm happy to be crashing it for the food alone, a sticky rice milk and needed the mano or for this different, different than biscuits and gravy. While this family's North Carolina roots stretched back nearly two centuries, it's tie roots stretched back much farther. Greedys and high to descendants. Welcome to the I believe twenty ninth Annual Bunker Reunion. This is the Bunker family. Bunker is the name Chang

and Ang adopted when they came to North Carolina. At this reunion, family members take sides. I'm a fourth grade grandson of Chang Bunker, I'm a great grandson of E. I'm a descend to mean. He had the strongest body, but his face was kind of like a plowdboars face. Little uncle Chang he had the weaker body, the crooked the backbone, but he had to pretty his face and hair. Everyone here seems proud to be descended from the twins.

Let's read the back of your shirt. It says our family sticks together, and there's a picture of Ing and Chang on the back. But apparently it wasn't always something the family celebrates. Did as Caroline, how she found out about the Sammy's twins? How did you find out about Sammy's twins? I was in the Living Wind one day as a little girl, and I just opened up the secretary and I saw all these articles and pictures of the twins and stashed away. You felt like you were

discovering family secrets. Yes, turns out many of the almost one thousand, five hundred descendants of Chang and Ang, I know, it's a crazy number. We'll explain have been on journeys of their own. And that's the other story we're going to tell you. Remember walking down the streets of Little Mount Airy, North Carolina, and going into a store and somebody would look at me and say, you must be one of those Bunkers. So I was a little bit labeled.

Alex Sink is a great granddaughter of Chang Bunker. But I have to give a credit to my father because he said, he said, well, you should be so proud of the fact that you come from the Sammy's twins who overcame so many ops tickles, and it's an incredible story to tell. The twins story begins on the other side of the planet in a fishing village in Siam.

The boys family was actually ethnically Chinese. The twins were born on a houseboat, perfectly healthy except for a four inch long band of flesh and cartilage joining them at the mid section. Trace your finger down the lower part of your chest, right where the bone stops. That's where they were connected. They shared one belly button right in the center of that band. Despite this connecting band, they

led a relatively normal life. They learned to walk and to swim, and to help the family make ends meet, they raised ducks and sold the exit market in Thailand. They weren't raised as curiosities the way that they would become in the United States. That's Joe Orser, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, eau Claire. He's the author of the Lives Chang and Eng, Siam's Twins. In nineteenth century America, they were given a great amount of

freedom to run around and play. One day, when the boys are just twelve years old, a British merchant named Robert Hunter comes sailing down the river and he spots something in the distance, and he saw what he would later describe a monstrosity. He thought it was some sort of animal playing in the water. Then he would ultimately discover that it was these conjoined brothers, and immediately he thinks we can make a lot of money exhibiting these

two young boys. Hunter spends five years lobbying the King of Siam for permission to take the boys with him, and if you're picturing Youle Brinner, sorry the King his character is based on in the musical, and doesn't come on the scene for a few more decades. Finally, after Hunter teams up with American ship captain Able Coffin, that King signs off and in eighteen twenty nine, the seventeen year old twins set sail for America, and I don't think they had any idea what they were getting into.

They had no idea when they left in eighteen twenty nine that they're not ever going to see their home man again, they're not going to see their mother again, that for the rest of their lives they're going to be in the West. They spend four months on the ship, climbing the mast, learning to play chess, picking up English from the sailors. The America that greets them is in the middle of a transformation. Andrew Jackson is the brand

new president. The country's industrializing, and it's a super boring place. There are basically three options for entertainment, card games, cider drinking, and cock fights. That's pretty much it. No surprise Chang and Eng become instant stars. People Magazine existed back then. They would be in at every other week, some of the first entertainers in America. I think at least famous ones.

Within months, they are household names. The phrase that would come to describe them, Siamese Twins, becomes very famous very quickly as well. That's right there, the original Siamese Twins. That's where the expression comes from by now that four inch band has stretched to five and a half inches, no small difference. They were able to stand side by side. If you've ever seen pictures of them, they're dressed nicely and each has one arm over the other's shoulder. That

was the most comfortable position for them. To me. They kind of looked like two best friends coming home from a late night out. As for the show they put on, there were some acts of acrobatic feats that they would be asked to do. These included somersaults, or lifting weights or playing badminton, you know when each of them holding

a racket and hitting the birdie back and forth. They're being asked to perform these types of physical feats for an audience that's paying money just to watch them, just because they're a pair of conjoined twins. But they're not just being docked at. They give as good as they get. Were they funny, Yeah, Some of the commenters said that they had a great sense of humor. They were very quick witted, so you could ask a question and they

would be, you know, quick with a response. During one show, they notice a one eyed man in the audience and they tell him they'll re fund half of his admission, because after all, he's only seeing half the show. They traveled the country. In New York City, they're exhibited at the Grand Saloon of the Basonic Hall. In small towns,

they perform in living rooms or tents. The small rural communities, they hold exhibits, and you've got wagons full of people kind of converging on the small towns to see the twins and to talk about the twins, and to spread rumors about the twins. There's this one story, a superstition surrounding them that's especially wild. So in Kentucky, shortly after their visit, a woman gives birth to conjoin twins. And

immediately the thought is did she see the twins? Was their conditions somehow contracted by her because she saw the twins? And no, she hadn't actually gone to the show, but she had seen pictures of the twins being advertised, And so the question is, well, did that cause almost like a viral exactly we're all wired to find the idea of conjoined twins sign These twins just completely and totally riveting. I remember being a kid and you you'd hear about a set being born and it's just it's you just

can't help but be fascinated. Why do you think that is? Because at once it's so familiar and yet also so different, so alien. They had the ideal physical form. It's the fact that they have this extra band of flesh that connects them, and at once it's appealing, it draws your attention,

but you also feel a slight sense of horror. They are an early version of, ultimately what would become known as a freak show, a traveling freak show, and those kind of experienced a tremendous level of success in the nineteenth century. Part of the fascination is that Chang and Ang are among the very first Asians in America. This is decades before Chinese immigrants come to work on the railroads. Philosophers opine about their souls, doctors prod them with needles.

There's a rom com written about them. Herman Melville alludes to them in Moby Dick Oh, and none other than Mark Twain speculates on them. He writes this, when one is sick, the other is sick. When one feels pain, the other feels it. When one is angered, the other's temper takes fire. And are people actually questioning whether they are one person or two. They're in Alabama and a doctor in the crowd and the audience of one of their shows thinks that they're in some way trying to

pull a fast one over on him. So the doctor asks one brother, what will happen if I poke you in the arm with a needle, And the other one says, if you poked my brother in the arm with the needle, I'm gonna punch you. Temper Temper, that's Jasper Bunker. He's a great grandson of Anger. It said that the twins had opposite personalities. Ang was more gentle and well mannered. Chang was cranky and love to fight. Sometimes they fought with each other, and sometimes that temper was directed at

those who got in their faces. They got in a scuffle and they had at of fight and full fish and started to go, you know, because if you mess with one brother, you're gonna get the other brother got full full fifth go in color. Increasingly their temper was directed at Able Coffin. He'd bought out Robert Hunter for full ownership of the twins contract. They had started to

understand that Americans saw them as bonded labor. Uh the money they earned was not going to them but to their owner, and so they knew that Americans believed that they were slaves. Just one of many indignities they suffered. When the twins traveled to England, Coffin and his wife luxuriated in first class while Chang and Eng stayed in steerage with the servants. Soon enough, they'd had enough. Pere's just sent an alex sink again. And they had the courage at the age of twenty one or write the

guy letter and said we're done. We can do this on our own, and so they did. It helped that they planned ahead for life as independent men. They were very frugal and saved enough money because I think they had in their mind that they didn't want to spend the risk of their lives and display. There are journals that outline every single penny they spent on their tour. At the age of twenty eight, they traveled through rural North Carolina. When they saw the Blue Ridge Mountains in

the distance, they were reminded of Siam. It was a sign they wanted to have a normal life. They were young men. There were normal young men who wanted to have a family, Chang and Ang were ready to settle down and make new connections. And this is where the story gets really interesting. Did you see the bridge yet? No? Chang eventually and this side of the creek, and Ings

family had the other side of the creek. During the Bunker Family reunion, I wanted to get a little closer to the life the Chang and Ang led here in mount Airy, North Carolina, so I asked Alex to show me around. And then the outhouse was down the hill. Do we know what the house looked like? We know it was a two holer for the twins. The story of Chang and Ang taking the country by storm and

then winning their freedom is so triumphant. So it's a little surprising that some of the family members the reunion drew up not even knowing they were related to them. When I was growing up, nobody talked about the twins very much. Really, why, oh, my grandmother, wouldn't they even let us spring up their name? Why it's because they know the Victorian age nobody wanted to talk about Now

they created one children, yes, twenty one children. But before we get ahead of ourselves, after a decade on the road, Chang and Ang retired to rural North Carolina, where they could start building a life undisturbed by curiosity seekers. They became American citizens, and as they established themselves in town, they started looking around for potential wives. The story goes that at a friend's wedding, Chang fell hard for Adelaide Eights.

It mutual, but as one half of conjoined twins, Chang realized the relationship was going to be extremely awkward unless Ang also found a spouse. The good news was that Addie Yates had a sister, Sarah. The bad news was that Sarah didn't particularly like Hang. So the twins hatched a plan have all the women from neighboring towns over for a quilting party. The era's version of a group hang Ang doated on Sarah sharing tales of life on the road. It worked. The twins had found their other halves.

What do you think They overcame in the mountains of North Carolina at by saying they wanted to get married, right, my God, And somehow, through their charm and with these two girls fell in love with them and agreed to Can you imagine how scandalous that was the courage of those two sisters too. Absolutely the sisters. For sure. It didn't hurt that the twins were funny and well rich, and that Addie and Sarah were used to not caring

what other people thought. I think probably the fact that their mother was was different because of being enormously overweight. Remember Tanya Jones, She's not only head of the Andy Griffith Museum slash Samese Twins exhibit, she's also a descendant of Anger and chair of the Bunker reunion this year. Um She supposedly was the largest person in the area

and reportedly weighed over five pounds. And they were used to being in the presence of someone who was looked at as different, so possibly that made them more open minded. It was around this time that the twins considered being separated. They figured if they were going to have normal lives. This was the moment Adelaide and Sarah were against it. I choose to believe that the girls preferred to have

them alive together conjoined, rather than possibly dead separated. Both couples were ready to tie their respective knots, but this was uncharted legal territory, and not because of the brothers being conjoined. Marriage between whites and non whites was illegal.

The twins were not white, but they also weren't black, so in this case, hoping to avoid any problems, each brother posted a bond of one thousand dollars, and in April eighteen forty three, in a small double wedding, and can I just say I love double weddings, Chang and Ang Bunker married Sarah and adelaide the eights and commenced building their families. But exactly how did they do that? All right, you knew it was coming. Let's talk about their sex lives. Well, let me give you a few

facts and then leave the rest for the imagination. This is unto Huang. He's a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of a biography about the twins called Inseparable. When they first married, Leah had only one house to the four of them, but later on they set up to separate households. They set up this kind of very rigid, uh schedule. Here's how it worked. For three days and nights they stayed at one brother's house,

and then they moved to the other brothers. Let's say they were at Chang's house Chang on the in those three days, can do whatever he likes, whatever he does with his wife, and Ang during this time would go into a passive meditative state. Imagine a computer in sleep mode, not shutting down, but inactive unto. Kwang describes the arrangement

as one of alternate mastery. It's what allowed each brother to enjoy intimate relations with his spouse while the other brother was right there was the bad sort of big enough for three people. Then yes, really, if you're giggling at the description of this unorthodox arrangement, I get it. But it's also kind of beautiful, the very definition of selflessness, to surrender, free will, to sacrifice like that, to give your brother some meaningful time with his wife. The marriages

were fruitful. Chang and Adelaide had ten kids. Ang and Sarah edged them out with eleven, and they were very loving parents. I mean, you can tail from dislocated even some of the photographs, you know, I was looking today the way Chang had his arm around my grandfather, and it wasn't stage journey thing. It was just they love their children. Loving your children is natural for Chang and

Ang brought to this country for exhibition. For these men to even have children and raise families strikes me as nothing short of radical, But being Southern gentleman in the Antebellum South meant something else. Altogether, everything you see around here was part of our farm. If you had been here, those fields would have been covered in tobacco plants. While Chang and Ang objected to themselves being seen as slaves, they had no problem owning slaves. The slavery was a

fact and antibell themselves. So it was their tickets. I should emphasize into the southern white world. This is the point at which the narrative becomes very complicated and uncomfortable, right because up until this point you're really root for them. But at this point the story you kind of you head a brick wall. They did treat this as business. They tend to buy rather young slaves. They will raise them and then sell them later at a profit when

they grow older, almost like investment property. Right. They ended up owning thirty two slaves, including children. Because of their wealth and the paucity of Chinese in America, yout Wong says, the twins were able to position themselves as honorary whites as in North Carolinian. I'm really, really proud of the fact that my great grandfather could come and settle down there as an Asian Chinese heritage and make a successful life for himself. I'm not proud of the fact that

they owned slaves. That's not a source of pride, but we have to recognize that at that point in time in history, that's how you got work done in a large farm. Earlier they were treated and they worked like slaves, certainly, and now the table is turned. Now they are masters slaves, the victimize becoming the victimizer. Yes. Absolutely. After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in eighteen sixty, the nation was thrown into crisis, and the twins once again became a convenient

literary device for journalists. The New York Tribune wrote, Jang resolved to sever the union with Ang, which he declared to be no longer worth preserving. But this wasn't brother against brother. The twins were united in their allegiance to the South. They sent two of their sons off to war and converted their fortune into Confederate currency and ultimately disastrous decision. They were wiped out financially, so they have

no choice. They only have one major asset left, which is their conjoined body, and that's why they decided to go back on the road again after many years. They were in their mid fifties, now forced to return for a grueling five years to the life they thought they'd left behind. They briefly teamed up with P. T. Barnum, whom they deeply mistrusted. They did a stint with a traveling circus in Europe. It was humiliating, and then Chang, a lifelong drinker, suffered a stroke and they came home

to North Carolina. Yet even in their final years, Chang and Ang couldn't escape the spotlight. I think there's something very sweet about the fact that in order to negotiate the world they had to put their arms around each other's shoulders. That's such a great thought. Yes, I love that. That's my friend Dr John Lapouk, he's CBS News is senior medical correspondent. He's giving me some perspective on what

life for the twins must have been like. Think about it, MO, when you're doing something just even just walking up on a curb that takes split second timing, how did they do that? Okay, now we're going to lift our left leg. Now we're going to lift their right leg. But after Chang had a stroke and they returned to North Carolina, Ang had to drag him around quite literally for the

next four years. Can you imagine. I mean, they were told from what I read, that if one of them died that they'd have to try to separate the two of them asap right away, uh, in order to for the other person to have a chance. Now, the odds of that happening had to be zero back then. I mean, they couldn't do it when they were healthy. One morning, after a particularly cold night, Ang's son came into his father's bedroom. His uncle Chang was dead. Ang was still alive.

To your attach it to a corpse, and that corps is probably pretty quickly getting cold. I cannot imagine what that moment is like. And so when I think about Chang and Ang, and I think about those final moments of Ang, his brother has died in and now the clock is ticking. And not only is it ticking, but he's having two things happen simultaneously. Physically, he's getting weaker, his blood pressure is probably dropping, he's probably getting infected

septic from the toxins. Something's happening by physical pain, physical pain, and he knows he's dying. Maybe he's feeling cold and emotionally, emotionally, and you just wonder what his last thoughts were, if he was able to think. Ang surrounded by family, would live for another few hours, his wife and children rubbing his arms and stretching his legs. I mean, like there is a ticking clock. I mean, it's just it's it's like a horror movie. It is a horror movie. But

you wonder for them. They lived sixty two years, they were able to actually have a life. It's a mirror that they even had a life at Almo. I wouldn't want to have been in their shoes, but it's remarkable. The brothers died on January seventeenth, eighteen seventy four. Their obituary made the front page of newspapers across the country. In death, they were celebrated and once again exploited. A public autopsy was performed in Philadelphia. Doctors discovered that the

brothers livers were connected. Indeed, they wouldn't have survived separation surgery in the mid nineteenth century. Today, they could have been separated. John Lapuke says, without question, doctors had promised the grieving widows to return the bodies intact. Instead, Chang and Ang were shipped back with some of their internal organs removed. You can still see their conjoined livers on

display at Philadelphia's Mood Museum. Eventually, they were laid to rest in a double wide casket with a single headstone in a cemetery in Mount Airy. But it's to the village in Thailand where their story began that their descendants recently traveled. We were on the bus one day and and I disapplorted out, oh my gosh, that looks exactly like the Blue Ridge Mountains. For Alex Sink and nine other descendants, including her cousin Robin Craver, it was an

emotional experience. I'm where I came from. My ancestors were here. They didn't make it back, but I did. They told me all about it at the reunion. Here's Alex. I just felt a connection of knowing that part of my blood, part of my genetic makeup, my d n A started in this river in this town. Uh and a little boat with my great grandfather selling duck eggs. How cool is that? Homer Bunker is a descendant on the Ang side.

Before we went on the trip, they said, you will be treated royally, and that can be interpreted in a number of ways. And when we got there, as they have pointed out, we were genuinely treated royally from the time we arrived at there. For oh my goodness, that was we are now and somebody wrong, largely forgotten in their adopted country. The twins have superstar status in Thailand. A lady was brought to tears from meeting me. I'm just little Robin Cramer from North Carolina. They have this

huge park. In the center of the park is an enormous statue of the Siamese Twins. And as I went around the memorial and read the inscriptions or whatever, and it's at that point that I thought, Hey, I need to write a song about this. All right, old toomer, you can't tease us this way. Yeah, well, would you like to hear my song? Gee? I thought you could ask two precious little Sammy's boys, Ing and Chain born to bring the world so many joys. May eleve and

eighteen eleven was the date of their arrival. Attached at the chest, they struggle for survival. Why do you think their story matters? Oh my gosh, America was always the beacon of the place where somebody could come and build a successful life, and they came here with nothing. In fact, they themselves were in effect owned. The twins decided, We're going to go off and create our own business and our own entertainment, and so they worked really, really hard.

I mean, you know, we talk a lot about people with disabilities. I mean, they had the ultimate disability. So I think it's an incredible, in sparing American immigration story. You know, it's really not weird at all that some of the family members used to be self conscious about being descended from the twins. Who isn't self conscious about your family when when you're a kid. I remember being afraid that people would find out that I called my

mother mamita instead of mom. She's Colombian. I know it sounds silly, but I was afraid I'd get made fun of that it would mark me as different. I outgrew that now I'm happy to let you know that I called her Mamita. I still do today. The Bunkers have a lot to be proud of. Alex Sink, whose real name is Adelaide. She's named after her great grandmother, was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Florida in two thousand ten.

Another descendant, Caroline Shaw, recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the late Caleb Haines was a decorated veteran of both World Wars, and every summer a whole bunch of bunkers descend on Mount Airy to celebrate the twins as well they should. Chang and Eng were extraordinary. They may not have been perfect, far from it, but they had courage. You would have thought there would have been at least one episode of the Andy Griffith Show that included that

nodditude that referred to Chang and Hang. But that's that just proves how little it was in people's radars. I would have loved don nods as Barney Fife coming in and say, I swear I saw them right, or I saw one of those buckers downtown today. Next time on Mobituaries, the death of a Tree and how it uprooted the sports world. You know, I just don't like all I wanted all people to hate me as much as I hate down. I certainly hope you enjoyed this moment. If

you would please rate and review our podcast. You can follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow me on Twitter at morocco. For more great content, please visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Megan Dietree and Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus, Kate mccauliffe, and me Morocca. It was edited by Megan Dietree and engineered by Dan de Zula,

with additional editing by Sophia Steinerd Evoy. Indispensable support from Kay limb Young, Kim Genius Taneski, Kira Wardlow, Richard Roher, and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to Dr Henore Ford, Alberto Robina, Tanya Jones, Alex Sink, Zach Blackman, Gary Rash, Hebert Yates, and the tire Bunker family. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart and, as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without whom

Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went could put and dragons, Yes, dragons, you see. People used to believe

the dragons were real until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local bookstore and look for me when I come to your city. Tour information and lots more at mobituaries dot com m H