Chang and Eng Bunker facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Chang and Eng Bunker
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Eng (viewer's left) and Chang in later years
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| Born | May 11, 1811 Samut Songkhram, Rattanakosin Kingdom (Siam)
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| Died | (aged 62) |
| Cause of death | Chang: cerebral blood clot Eng: fright |
| Resting place | White Plains Baptist Church, Mount Airy, N.C. |
| Years active | 1829–1870 |
| Known for | Exhibitions as curiosities, and known as the original "Siamese twins" |
| Spouse(s) | Chang: Adelaide Yates Eng: Sarah Yates (both m. 1843) |
| Children | Chang: 10 Eng: 11 |
Chang (pinyin: Chāng; RTGS: Chan) and Eng (pinyin: Ēn; RTGS: In) Bunker (May 11, 1811 – January 17, 1874) were Thai-American conjoined twin brothers whose condition and birthplace became the basis for the term "Siamese twins".
The brothers were born with Chinese ancestry in Siam (now known as Thailand) and were brought to the United States in 1829. Physicians inspected them as they became known to American and European audiences in "freak shows". Newspapers and the public were initially sympathetic to them, and within three years they started touring on their own.
In 1839, after a decade of financial success, the twins quit touring and settled near Mount Airy, North Carolina. They became American citizens, bought slaves, married local sisters, and fathered 21 children, several of whom accompanied them when they resumed touring. Chang's and Eng's respective families lived in separate houses, where the twins took alternating three-day stays. After the Civil War, they lost part of their wealth. Eng died hours after Chang at the age of 62.
Contents
Life
The Bunker brothers were born on May 11, 1811, in the province of Samutsongkram, near Bangkok, in the Kingdom of Siam (today's Thailand). Their fisherman father was a Chinese Thai, while their mother, Nok, (RTGS: Nak) was half-Chinese and half-Malay. The brothers were joined at the sternum by a small piece of cartilage, and though their livers were fused, they were independently complete.
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In 1829, Robert Hunter, a Scottish merchant who lived in Bangkok, saw the twins swimming and realized their potential. He paid their parents to permit him to exhibit their sons as a curiosity on a world tour. When their contract with Hunter was over, Chang and Eng went into business for themselves. In 1839, while visiting Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the brothers were attracted to the area and purchased a 110-acre (0.45 km2) farm in nearby Traphill.
Determined to live as normal a life they could, Chang and Eng settled on their small plantation and bought slaves. Using their adopted name "Bunker", they married local women on April 13, 1843. Chang wed Adelaide Yates (1823–1917), while Eng married her sister, Sarah Anne (1822–1892). The twins also became naturalized American citizens.
Chang and Adelaide would become the parents of twelve children. Eng and Sarah had ten.
Later years and death
In 1870, Chang suffered a stroke and his health declined over the next four years. Despite his brother's ailing condition, Eng remained in good health. Shortly before his death, Chang was injured after falling from a carriage. He then developed a severe case of bronchitis. On January 17, 1874, Chang died while the brothers were asleep. Eng awoke to find his brother dead and cried, "Then I am going". A doctor was summoned to perform an emergency separation, but he was too late. Eng died approximately three hours later.
As to the question of separation, it was found that the twins' livers were joined by a thin strip of liver tissue. It was concluded that the twins could not have been safely separated, as they would have died from the blood loss that would have resulted from such an operation.
Sarah Anne Bunker (Eng's widow) died on April 29, 1892, and Adelaide Bunker (Chang's widow) died on May 21, 1917.
Legacy
- The preserved fused livers of the Bunker brothers and the plaster death cast is currently on display at the Mütter Museum, where they were removed and made respectively, as one of their permanent exhibitions. Numerous artifacts of the twins, including some of their personal artifacts and their travel ledger, are displayed in the North Carolina Collection Gallery in Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; this includes the original watercolor portrait of Chang and Eng from 1836.
- Mark Twain wrote a short story, The Siamese Twins, based on the Bunkers.
- In 1996, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute radio play called United States about the lives and deaths of Chang and Eng Bunker. The writer was Tony Coult and the director was Andy Jordan. Transmission was on June 17, with a cast that included Bert Kwouk and Ozzie Yue as the twins.
- A Singapore musical based on the life of the twins, Chang & Eng, was directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham and written by Ming Wong, with music by Ken Low. Chang & Eng premiered in 1997 and has since been performed around Asia, starring Robin Goh as Chang Bunker, Sing Seng Kwang as Eng Bunker, and Selena Tan as their mother, Nok. Subsequent productions starred Edmund Toh as Chang Bunker and RJ Rosales as Eng Bunker.
- The best-selling and multiple-award-winning 2000 novel Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss was based on the life of the famous Bunker twins. The film rights to the novel were purchased by award-winning filmmaking team Gary Oldman and Douglas Urbanski. Oldman is currently working on the screenplay and will also direct.
- I Dream of Chang and Eng, a play by noted Bay Area playwright Philip Kan Gotanda that is based on the lives of the Bunker Twins, was produced in workshop form at UC Berkeley and was produced on their main stage in the spring of 2011.
- In The Greatest Showman, a 2017 musical film based on the creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Danial Son and Yusaku Komori portrayed the twins.
Descendants
Chang and Eng Bunker fathered a total of 21 children, and their descendants now number more than 1,500. Many of their descendants continue to reside in the vicinity of Mount Airy, and descendants of both brothers continue to hold joint reunions. Two hundred descendants reunited in Mount Airy in July 2011 for the twins' 200th birthday and for the descendants' 22nd annual reunion.
Prominent descendants include:
- United States Air Force Major General Caleb V. Haynes was a grandson of Chang Bunker through his daughter Margaret Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bunker.
- General Haynes's son, Vance Haynes, earned a doctorate in geosciences, performed foundational fieldwork at Sandia Cave to determine the timeline of human migration through North America, and served as professor at several universities.
- Alex Sink, former Chief Financial Officer of Florida, is a great-granddaughter of Chang Bunker and was the Democratic nominee in the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election.
- Eng's grandson through his daughter Rosella, George F. Ashby, was President of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1940s.
- Chang's son, Christopher Wren Bunker, built Haystack Farm, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
- Composer Caroline Shaw is a great-great-granddaughter of Chang Bunker and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013.
Other prominent conjoined twins
Images for kids
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Colored etching of the young twins
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Early reports on the twins described them as young boys, a label they tried to shake.
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Promotional ephemera
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Oil painting by Édouard Pingret, 1836
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The Bunkers, wives, 18 children, and the first of their slaves, Grace Gates
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"The Political 'Siamese' Twins, the Offspring of Chicago Miscegenation":
This cartoon objects to the 1864 Democratic ticket that combined two men with differing views: George Pendleton opposed the Civil War; George McClellan did not support a ceasefire. -
After the Civil War, Northerners received the "Wonderful & World Renowned" twins much more poorly than before.
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Family portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1865: (L–R) Sarah, her son Patrick Henry, Eng, Chang, his son Albert, Adelaide
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Three works of political satire referencing "the Siamese Youths" by William Heath, 1830
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See also
In Spanish: Chang y Eng para niños
