Speaker 1: It's July and I'm in mount Airy, North Carolina, population
Speaker 1: ten thousand three. Located at the foothills of the beautiful
Speaker 1: Blue Ridge Mountains. This is the birthplace of beloved American
Speaker 1: actor Andy Griffith and the model for Mayberry, the setting
Speaker 1: for his classic sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. Griffith played
Speaker 1: Sheriff Andy Taylor, keeping watch over his sleepy town and
Speaker 1: his young son Opie, played by little Ronnie Howard. When
Speaker 1: you give you word, never go back on you. You
Speaker 1: understand that day? Okay, Pa, you can trust me. If
Speaker 1: the name sounds familiar. Opie grew up to become Happy
Speaker 1: Days actor and Hollywood movie director ron Howard. To bring
Speaker 1: in the tourists, mount Airy does its best to recreate
Speaker 1: the Maybury experience. You can eat at Snappy Lunch, which
Speaker 1: was mentioned on the show that the same as the
Speaker 1: port Untamemad show. You can ride around in a replica
Speaker 1: Maybury police car, or you can spend a couple of
Speaker 1: hours at the Andy Griffith Museum at our house. Every
Speaker 1: day we have they're recorded and rewatched all the time.
Speaker 1: Growing up, we watched it in reruns. It was my
Speaker 1: father's favorite show. Six thirty PM, Channel five. But not
Speaker 1: many of these people know that the price of admission
Speaker 1: to the Anti Griffith Museum will allow them entrance into
Speaker 1: another smaller museum just downstairs in the basement. The eight
Speaker 1: dollars prize includes the Siamese Twin exhibit as well as
Speaker 1: Andy Griffith Museum. Take a peek at It The Siamese Twins,
Speaker 1: mount Airy's second and third favorite sons. Simon Selection, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a part of them. This is fascinating, It really is.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they died together or I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what happened at the end of their lives.
Speaker 1: Tanya Jones runs both places and talks about a common
Speaker 1: reaction from the people who visit the exhibit downstairs. The
Speaker 1: surprise is why is it here? And it's here because
Speaker 1: this is where they settled and raised their families. Chang
Speaker 1: and Ang Bunker, the once world famous joined twins, were
Speaker 1: born in Thailand called Siam at the time in eighteen eleven,
Speaker 1: and later in life, settled right here in Mount Airy,
Speaker 1: many years before people even heard about Mayberry. This episode
Speaker 1: is about those remarkable twins. It's a complicated and not
Speaker 1: always happy story, but this story is real. So I
Speaker 1: mean they weren't a part of the show or anything though,
Speaker 1: were they definitely know they was only any different show.
Speaker 1: I'm Murrah go, and this is mobituaries. This MOPI Chang
Speaker 1: and Ang Bunker, a messy American dream. This is Francis
Speaker 1: and Caroline. I've seen you before, You've seen him on television.
Speaker 1: I'm CBS. I'm Francis Hall, okay, and I'm at a
Speaker 1: family reunion here in mount Airy, North Carolina. And he
Speaker 1: must be the youngest Bunker here. Yeah, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: look at him. Okay, So it's not my family reunion,
Speaker 1: but I'm happy to be crashing it for the food alone,
Speaker 1: a sticky rice milk and needed the mano or for
Speaker 1: this different, different than biscuits and gravy. While this family's
Speaker 1: North Carolina roots stretched back nearly two centuries, it's tie
Speaker 1: roots stretched back much farther. Greedys and high to descendants.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the I believe twenty ninth Annual Bunker Reunion.
Speaker 1: This is the Bunker family. Bunker is the name Chang
Speaker 1: and Ang adopted when they came to North Carolina. At
Speaker 1: this reunion, family members take sides. I'm a fourth grade
Speaker 1: grandson of Chang Bunker, I'm a great grandson of E.
Speaker 1: I'm a descend to mean. He had the strongest body,
Speaker 1: but his face was kind of like a plowdboars face.
Speaker 1: Little uncle Chang he had the weaker body, the crooked
Speaker 1: the backbone, but he had to pretty his face and hair.
Speaker 1: Everyone here seems proud to be descended from the twins.
Speaker 1: Let's read the back of your shirt. It says our
Speaker 1: family sticks together, and there's a picture of Ing and
Speaker 1: Chang on the back. But apparently it wasn't always something
Speaker 1: the family celebrates. Did as Caroline, how she found out
Speaker 1: about the Sammy's twins? How did you find out about
Speaker 1: Sammy's twins? I was in the Living Wind one day
Speaker 1: as a little girl, and I just opened up the
Speaker 1: secretary and I saw all these articles and pictures of
Speaker 1: the twins and stashed away. You felt like you were
Speaker 1: discovering family secrets. Yes, turns out many of the almost
Speaker 1: one thousand, five hundred descendants of Chang and Ang, I know,
Speaker 1: it's a crazy number. We'll explain have been on journeys
Speaker 1: of their own. And that's the other story we're going
Speaker 1: to tell you. Remember walking down the streets of Little
Speaker 1: Mount Airy, North Carolina, and going into a store and
Speaker 1: somebody would look at me and say, you must be
Speaker 1: one of those Bunkers. So I was a little bit labeled.
Speaker 1: Alex Sink is a great granddaughter of Chang Bunker. But
Speaker 1: I have to give a credit to my father because
Speaker 1: he said, he said, well, you should be so proud
Speaker 1: of the fact that you come from the Sammy's twins
Speaker 1: who overcame so many ops tickles, and it's an incredible
Speaker 1: story to tell. The twins story begins on the other
Speaker 1: side of the planet in a fishing village in Siam.
Speaker 1: The boys family was actually ethnically Chinese. The twins were
Speaker 1: born on a houseboat, perfectly healthy except for a four
Speaker 1: inch long band of flesh and cartilage joining them at
Speaker 1: the mid section. Trace your finger down the lower part
Speaker 1: of your chest, right where the bone stops. That's where
Speaker 1: they were connected. They shared one belly button right in
Speaker 1: the center of that band. Despite this connecting band, they
Speaker 1: led a relatively normal life. They learned to walk and
Speaker 1: to swim, and to help the family make ends meet,
Speaker 1: they raised ducks and sold the exit market in Thailand.
Speaker 1: They weren't raised as curiosities the way that they would
Speaker 1: become in the United States. That's Joe Orser, a history
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Wisconsin, eau Claire. He's the
Speaker 1: author of the Lives Chang and Eng, Siam's Twins. In
Speaker 1: nineteenth century America, they were given a great amount of
Speaker 1: freedom to run around and play. One day, when the
Speaker 1: boys are just twelve years old, a British merchant named
Speaker 1: Robert Hunter comes sailing down the river and he spots
Speaker 1: something in the distance, and he saw what he would
Speaker 1: later describe a monstrosity. He thought it was some sort
Speaker 1: of animal playing in the water. Then he would ultimately
Speaker 1: discover that it was these conjoined brothers, and immediately he
Speaker 1: thinks we can make a lot of money exhibiting these
Speaker 1: two young boys. Hunter spends five years lobbying the King
Speaker 1: of Siam for permission to take the boys with him,
Speaker 1: and if you're picturing Youle Brinner, sorry the King his
Speaker 1: character is based on in the musical, and doesn't come
Speaker 1: on the scene for a few more decades. Finally, after
Speaker 1: Hunter teams up with American ship captain Able Coffin, that
Speaker 1: King signs off and in eighteen twenty nine, the seventeen
Speaker 1: year old twins set sail for America, and I don't
Speaker 1: think they had any idea what they were getting into.
Speaker 1: They had no idea when they left in eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: nine that they're not ever going to see their home
Speaker 1: man again, they're not going to see their mother again,
Speaker 1: that for the rest of their lives they're going to
Speaker 1: be in the West. They spend four months on the ship,
Speaker 1: climbing the mast, learning to play chess, picking up English
Speaker 1: from the sailors. The America that greets them is in
Speaker 1: the middle of a transformation. Andrew Jackson is the brand
Speaker 1: new president. The country's industrializing, and it's a super boring place.
Speaker 1: There are basically three options for entertainment, card games, cider drinking,
Speaker 1: and cock fights. That's pretty much it. No surprise Chang
Speaker 1: and Eng become instant stars. People Magazine existed back then.
Speaker 1: They would be in at every other week, some of
Speaker 1: the first entertainers in America. I think at least famous ones.
Speaker 1: Within months, they are household names. The phrase that would
Speaker 1: come to describe them, Siamese Twins, becomes very famous very
Speaker 1: quickly as well. That's right there, the original Siamese Twins.
Speaker 1: That's where the expression comes from by now that four
Speaker 1: inch band has stretched to five and a half inches,
Speaker 1: no small difference. They were able to stand side by side.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen pictures of them, they're dressed nicely
Speaker 1: and each has one arm over the other's shoulder. That
Speaker 1: was the most comfortable position for them. To me. They
Speaker 1: kind of looked like two best friends coming home from
Speaker 1: a late night out. As for the show they put on,
Speaker 1: there were some acts of acrobatic feats that they would
Speaker 1: be asked to do. These included somersaults, or lifting weights
Speaker 1: or playing badminton, you know when each of them holding
Speaker 1: a racket and hitting the birdie back and forth. They're
Speaker 1: being asked to perform these types of physical feats for
Speaker 1: an audience that's paying money just to watch them, just
Speaker 1: because they're a pair of conjoined twins. But they're not
Speaker 1: just being docked at. They give as good as they get.
Speaker 1: Were they funny, Yeah, Some of the commenters said that
Speaker 1: they had a great sense of humor. They were very
Speaker 1: quick witted, so you could ask a question and they
Speaker 1: would be, you know, quick with a response. During one show,
Speaker 1: they notice a one eyed man in the audience and
Speaker 1: they tell him they'll re fund half of his admission,
Speaker 1: because after all, he's only seeing half the show. They
Speaker 1: traveled the country. In New York City, they're exhibited at
Speaker 1: the Grand Saloon of the Basonic Hall. In small towns,
Speaker 1: they perform in living rooms or tents. The small rural communities,
Speaker 1: they hold exhibits, and you've got wagons full of people
Speaker 1: kind of converging on the small towns to see the
Speaker 1: twins and to talk about the twins, and to spread
Speaker 1: rumors about the twins. There's this one story, a superstition
Speaker 1: surrounding them that's especially wild. So in Kentucky, shortly after
Speaker 1: their visit, a woman gives birth to conjoin twins. And
Speaker 1: immediately the thought is did she see the twins? Was
Speaker 1: their conditions somehow contracted by her because she saw the twins?
Speaker 1: And no, she hadn't actually gone to the show, but
Speaker 1: she had seen pictures of the twins being advertised, And
Speaker 1: so the question is, well, did that cause almost like
Speaker 1: a viral exactly we're all wired to find the idea
Speaker 1: of conjoined twins sign These twins just completely and totally riveting.
Speaker 1: I remember being a kid and you you'd hear about
Speaker 1: a set being born and it's just it's you just
Speaker 1: can't help but be fascinated. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 1: Because at once it's so familiar and yet also so different,
Speaker 1: so alien. They had the ideal physical form. It's the
Speaker 1: fact that they have this extra band of flesh that
Speaker 1: connects them, and at once it's appealing, it draws your attention,
Speaker 1: but you also feel a slight sense of horror. They
Speaker 1: are an early version of, ultimately what would become known
Speaker 1: as a freak show, a traveling freak show, and those
Speaker 1: kind of experienced a tremendous level of success in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Part of the fascination is that Chang and
Speaker 1: Ang are among the very first Asians in America. This
Speaker 1: is decades before Chinese immigrants come to work on the railroads.
Speaker 1: Philosophers opine about their souls, doctors prod them with needles.
Speaker 1: There's a rom com written about them. Herman Melville alludes
Speaker 1: to them in Moby Dick Oh, and none other than
Speaker 1: Mark Twain speculates on them. He writes this, when one
Speaker 1: is sick, the other is sick. When one feels pain,
Speaker 1: the other feels it. When one is angered, the other's
Speaker 1: temper takes fire. And are people actually questioning whether they
Speaker 1: are one person or two. They're in Alabama and a
Speaker 1: doctor in the crowd and the audience of one of
Speaker 1: their shows thinks that they're in some way trying to
Speaker 1: pull a fast one over on him. So the doctor
Speaker 1: asks one brother, what will happen if I poke you
Speaker 1: in the arm with a needle, And the other one says,
Speaker 1: if you poked my brother in the arm with the needle,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna punch you. Temper Temper, that's Jasper Bunker. He's
Speaker 1: a great grandson of Anger. It said that the twins
Speaker 1: had opposite personalities. Ang was more gentle and well mannered.
Speaker 1: Chang was cranky and love to fight. Sometimes they fought
Speaker 1: with each other, and sometimes that temper was directed at
Speaker 1: those who got in their faces. They got in a
Speaker 1: scuffle and they had at of fight and full fish
Speaker 1: and started to go, you know, because if you mess
Speaker 1: with one brother, you're gonna get the other brother got
Speaker 1: full full fifth go in color. Increasingly their temper was
Speaker 1: directed at Able Coffin. He'd bought out Robert Hunter for
Speaker 1: full ownership of the twins contract. They had started to
Speaker 1: understand that Americans saw them as bonded labor. Uh the
Speaker 1: money they earned was not going to them but to
Speaker 1: their owner, and so they knew that Americans believed that
Speaker 1: they were slaves. Just one of many indignities they suffered.
Speaker 1: When the twins traveled to England, Coffin and his wife
Speaker 1: luxuriated in first class while Chang and Eng stayed in
Speaker 1: steerage with the servants. Soon enough, they'd had enough. Pere's
Speaker 1: just sent an alex sink again. And they had the
Speaker 1: courage at the age of twenty one or write the
Speaker 1: guy letter and said we're done. We can do this
Speaker 1: on our own, and so they did. It helped that
Speaker 1: they planned ahead for life as independent men. They were
Speaker 1: very frugal and saved enough money because I think they
Speaker 1: had in their mind that they didn't want to spend
Speaker 1: the risk of their lives and display. There are journals
Speaker 1: that outline every single penny they spent on their tour.
Speaker 1: At the age of twenty eight, they traveled through rural
Speaker 1: North Carolina. When they saw the Blue Ridge Mountains in
Speaker 1: the distance, they were reminded of Siam. It was a
Speaker 1: sign they wanted to have a normal life. They were
Speaker 1: young men. There were normal young men who wanted to
Speaker 1: have a family, Chang and Ang were ready to settle
Speaker 1: down and make new connections. And this is where the
Speaker 1: story gets really interesting. Did you see the bridge yet? No?
Speaker 1: Chang eventually and this side of the creek, and Ings
Speaker 1: family had the other side of the creek. During the
Speaker 1: Bunker Family reunion, I wanted to get a little closer
Speaker 1: to the life the Chang and Ang led here in
Speaker 1: mount Airy, North Carolina, so I asked Alex to show
Speaker 1: me around. And then the outhouse was down the hill.
Speaker 1: Do we know what the house looked like? We know
Speaker 1: it was a two holer for the twins. The story
Speaker 1: of Chang and Ang taking the country by storm and
Speaker 1: then winning their freedom is so triumphant. So it's a
Speaker 1: little surprising that some of the family members the reunion
Speaker 1: drew up not even knowing they were related to them.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, nobody talked about the twins
Speaker 1: very much. Really, why, oh, my grandmother, wouldn't they even
Speaker 1: let us spring up their name? Why it's because they
Speaker 1: know the Victorian age nobody wanted to talk about Now
Speaker 1: they created one children, yes, twenty one children. But before
Speaker 1: we get ahead of ourselves, after a decade on the road,
Speaker 1: Chang and Ang retired to rural North Carolina, where they
Speaker 1: could start building a life undisturbed by curiosity seekers. They
Speaker 1: became American citizens, and as they established themselves in town,
Speaker 1: they started looking around for potential wives. The story goes
Speaker 1: that at a friend's wedding, Chang fell hard for Adelaide Eights.
Speaker 1: It mutual, but as one half of conjoined twins, Chang
Speaker 1: realized the relationship was going to be extremely awkward unless
Speaker 1: Ang also found a spouse. The good news was that
Speaker 1: Addie Yates had a sister, Sarah. The bad news was
Speaker 1: that Sarah didn't particularly like Hang. So the twins hatched
Speaker 1: a plan have all the women from neighboring towns over
Speaker 1: for a quilting party. The era's version of a group
Speaker 1: hang Ang doated on Sarah sharing tales of life on
Speaker 1: the road. It worked. The twins had found their other halves.
Speaker 1: What do you think They overcame in the mountains of
Speaker 1: North Carolina at by saying they wanted to get married, right,
Speaker 1: my God, And somehow, through their charm and with these
Speaker 1: two girls fell in love with them and agreed to
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how scandalous that was the courage of
Speaker 1: those two sisters too. Absolutely the sisters. For sure. It
Speaker 1: didn't hurt that the twins were funny and well rich,
Speaker 1: and that Addie and Sarah were used to not caring
Speaker 1: what other people thought. I think probably the fact that
Speaker 1: their mother was was different because of being enormously overweight.
Speaker 1: Remember Tanya Jones, She's not only head of the Andy
Speaker 1: Griffith Museum slash Samese Twins exhibit, she's also a descendant
Speaker 1: of Anger and chair of the Bunker reunion this year.
Speaker 1: Um She supposedly was the largest person in the area
Speaker 1: and reportedly weighed over five pounds. And they were used
Speaker 1: to being in the presence of someone who was looked
Speaker 1: at as different, so possibly that made them more open minded.
Speaker 1: It was around this time that the twins considered being separated.
Speaker 1: They figured if they were going to have normal lives.
Speaker 1: This was the moment Adelaide and Sarah were against it.
Speaker 1: I choose to believe that the girls preferred to have
Speaker 1: them alive together conjoined, rather than possibly dead separated. Both
Speaker 1: couples were ready to tie their respective knots, but this
Speaker 1: was uncharted legal territory, and not because of the brothers
Speaker 1: being conjoined. Marriage between whites and non whites was illegal.
Speaker 1: The twins were not white, but they also weren't black,
Speaker 1: so in this case, hoping to avoid any problems, each
Speaker 1: brother posted a bond of one thousand dollars, and in
Speaker 1: April eighteen forty three, in a small double wedding, and
Speaker 1: can I just say I love double weddings, Chang and
Speaker 1: Ang Bunker married Sarah and adelaide the eights and commenced
Speaker 1: building their families. But exactly how did they do that?
Speaker 1: All right, you knew it was coming. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: their sex lives. Well, let me give you a few
Speaker 1: facts and then leave the rest for the imagination. This
Speaker 1: is unto Huang. He's a professor at the University of California,
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara and author of a biography about the twins
Speaker 1: called Inseparable. When they first married, Leah had only one
Speaker 1: house to the four of them, but later on they
Speaker 1: set up to separate households. They set up this kind
Speaker 1: of very rigid, uh schedule. Here's how it worked. For
Speaker 1: three days and nights they stayed at one brother's house,
Speaker 1: and then they moved to the other brothers. Let's say
Speaker 1: they were at Chang's house Chang on the in those
Speaker 1: three days, can do whatever he likes, whatever he does
Speaker 1: with his wife, and Ang during this time would go
Speaker 1: into a passive meditative state. Imagine a computer in sleep mode,
Speaker 1: not shutting down, but inactive unto. Kwang describes the arrangement
Speaker 1: as one of alternate mastery. It's what allowed each brother
Speaker 1: to enjoy intimate relations with his spouse while the other
Speaker 1: brother was right there was the bad sort of big
Speaker 1: enough for three people. Then yes, really, if you're giggling
Speaker 1: at the description of this unorthodox arrangement, I get it.
Speaker 1: But it's also kind of beautiful, the very definition of selflessness,
Speaker 1: to surrender, free will, to sacrifice like that, to give
Speaker 1: your brother some meaningful time with his wife. The marriages
Speaker 1: were fruitful. Chang and Adelaide had ten kids. Ang and
Speaker 1: Sarah edged them out with eleven, and they were very
Speaker 1: loving parents. I mean, you can tail from dislocated even
Speaker 1: some of the photographs, you know, I was looking today
Speaker 1: the way Chang had his arm around my grandfather, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't stage journey thing. It was just they love
Speaker 1: their children. Loving your children is natural for Chang and
Speaker 1: Ang brought to this country for exhibition. For these men
Speaker 1: to even have children and raise families strikes me as
Speaker 1: nothing short of radical, But being Southern gentleman in the
Speaker 1: Antebellum South meant something else. Altogether, everything you see around
Speaker 1: here was part of our farm. If you had been here,
Speaker 1: those fields would have been covered in tobacco plants. While
Speaker 1: Chang and Ang objected to themselves being seen as slaves,
Speaker 1: they had no problem owning slaves. The slavery was a
Speaker 1: fact and antibell themselves. So it was their tickets. I
Speaker 1: should emphasize into the southern white world. This is the
Speaker 1: point at which the narrative becomes very complicated and uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: right because up until this point you're really root for them.
Speaker 1: But at this point the story you kind of you
Speaker 1: head a brick wall. They did treat this as business.
Speaker 1: They tend to buy rather young slaves. They will raise
Speaker 1: them and then sell them later at a profit when
Speaker 1: they grow older, almost like investment property. Right. They ended
Speaker 1: up owning thirty two slaves, including children. Because of their
Speaker 1: wealth and the paucity of Chinese in America, yout Wong says,
Speaker 1: the twins were able to position themselves as honorary whites
Speaker 1: as in North Carolinian. I'm really, really proud of the
Speaker 1: fact that my great grandfather could come and settle down
Speaker 1: there as an Asian Chinese heritage and make a successful
Speaker 1: life for himself. I'm not proud of the fact that
Speaker 1: they owned slaves. That's not a source of pride, but
Speaker 1: we have to recognize that at that point in time
Speaker 1: in history, that's how you got work done in a
Speaker 1: large farm. Earlier they were treated and they worked like slaves, certainly,
Speaker 1: and now the table is turned. Now they are masters slaves,
Speaker 1: the victimize becoming the victimizer. Yes. Absolutely. After Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: was elected president in eighteen sixty, the nation was thrown
Speaker 1: into crisis, and the twins once again became a convenient
Speaker 1: literary device for journalists. The New York Tribune wrote, Jang
Speaker 1: resolved to sever the union with Ang, which he declared
Speaker 1: to be no longer worth preserving. But this wasn't brother
Speaker 1: against brother. The twins were united in their allegiance to
Speaker 1: the South. They sent two of their sons off to
Speaker 1: war and converted their fortune into Confederate currency and ultimately
Speaker 1: disastrous decision. They were wiped out financially, so they have
Speaker 1: no choice. They only have one major asset left, which
Speaker 1: is their conjoined body, and that's why they decided to
Speaker 1: go back on the road again after many years. They
Speaker 1: were in their mid fifties, now forced to return for
Speaker 1: a grueling five years to the life they thought they'd
Speaker 1: left behind. They briefly teamed up with P. T. Barnum,
Speaker 1: whom they deeply mistrusted. They did a stint with a
Speaker 1: traveling circus in Europe. It was humiliating, and then Chang,
Speaker 1: a lifelong drinker, suffered a stroke and they came home
Speaker 1: to North Carolina. Yet even in their final years, Chang
Speaker 1: and Ang couldn't escape the spotlight. I think there's something
Speaker 1: very sweet about the fact that in order to negotiate
Speaker 1: the world they had to put their arms around each
Speaker 1: other's shoulders. That's such a great thought. Yes, I love that.
Speaker 1: That's my friend Dr John Lapouk, he's CBS News is
Speaker 1: senior medical correspondent. He's giving me some perspective on what
Speaker 1: life for the twins must have been like. Think about it, MO,
Speaker 1: when you're doing something just even just walking up on
Speaker 1: a curb that takes split second timing, how did they
Speaker 1: do that? Okay, now we're going to lift our left leg.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to lift their right leg. But after
Speaker 1: Chang had a stroke and they returned to North Carolina,
Speaker 1: Ang had to drag him around quite literally for the
Speaker 1: next four years. Can you imagine. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: told from what I read, that if one of them
Speaker 1: died that they'd have to try to separate the two
Speaker 1: of them asap right away, uh, in order to for
Speaker 1: the other person to have a chance. Now, the odds
Speaker 1: of that happening had to be zero back then. I mean,
Speaker 1: they couldn't do it when they were healthy. One morning,
Speaker 1: after a particularly cold night, Ang's son came into his
Speaker 1: father's bedroom. His uncle Chang was dead. Ang was still alive.
Speaker 1: To your attach it to a corpse, and that corps
Speaker 1: is probably pretty quickly getting cold. I cannot imagine what
Speaker 1: that moment is like. And so when I think about
Speaker 1: Chang and Ang, and I think about those final moments
Speaker 1: of Ang, his brother has died in and now the
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. And not only is it ticking, but
Speaker 1: he's having two things happen simultaneously. Physically, he's getting weaker,
Speaker 1: his blood pressure is probably dropping, he's probably getting infected
Speaker 1: septic from the toxins. Something's happening by physical pain, physical pain,
Speaker 1: and he knows he's dying. Maybe he's feeling cold and emotionally, emotionally,
Speaker 1: and you just wonder what his last thoughts were, if
Speaker 1: he was able to think. Ang surrounded by family, would
Speaker 1: live for another few hours, his wife and children rubbing
Speaker 1: his arms and stretching his legs. I mean, like there
Speaker 1: is a ticking clock. I mean, it's just it's it's
Speaker 1: like a horror movie. It is a horror movie. But
Speaker 1: you wonder for them. They lived sixty two years, they
Speaker 1: were able to actually have a life. It's a mirror
Speaker 1: that they even had a life at Almo. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to have been in their shoes, but it's remarkable.
Speaker 1: The brothers died on January seventeenth, eighteen seventy four. Their
Speaker 1: obituary made the front page of newspapers across the country.
Speaker 1: In death, they were celebrated and once again exploited. A
Speaker 1: public autopsy was performed in Philadelphia. Doctors discovered that the
Speaker 1: brothers livers were connected. Indeed, they wouldn't have survived separation
Speaker 1: surgery in the mid nineteenth century. Today, they could have
Speaker 1: been separated. John Lapuke says, without question, doctors had promised
Speaker 1: the grieving widows to return the bodies intact. Instead, Chang
Speaker 1: and Ang were shipped back with some of their internal
Speaker 1: organs removed. You can still see their conjoined livers on
Speaker 1: display at Philadelphia's Mood Museum. Eventually, they were laid to
Speaker 1: rest in a double wide casket with a single headstone
Speaker 1: in a cemetery in Mount Airy. But it's to the
Speaker 1: village in Thailand where their story began that their descendants
Speaker 1: recently traveled. We were on the bus one day and
Speaker 1: and I disapplorted out, oh my gosh, that looks exactly
Speaker 1: like the Blue Ridge Mountains. For Alex Sink and nine
Speaker 1: other descendants, including her cousin Robin Craver, it was an
Speaker 1: emotional experience. I'm where I came from. My ancestors were here.
Speaker 1: They didn't make it back, but I did. They told
Speaker 1: me all about it at the reunion. Here's Alex. I
Speaker 1: just felt a connection of knowing that part of my blood,
Speaker 1: part of my genetic makeup, my d n A started
Speaker 1: in this river in this town. Uh and a little
Speaker 1: boat with my great grandfather selling duck eggs. How cool
Speaker 1: is that? Homer Bunker is a descendant on the Ang side.
Speaker 1: Before we went on the trip, they said, you will
Speaker 1: be treated royally, and that can be interpreted in a
Speaker 1: number of ways. And when we got there, as they
Speaker 1: have pointed out, we were genuinely treated royally from the
Speaker 1: time we arrived at there. For oh my goodness, that
Speaker 1: was we are now and somebody wrong, largely forgotten in
Speaker 1: their adopted country. The twins have superstar status in Thailand.
Speaker 1: A lady was brought to tears from meeting me. I'm
Speaker 1: just little Robin Cramer from North Carolina. They have this
Speaker 1: huge park. In the center of the park is an
Speaker 1: enormous statue of the Siamese Twins. And as I went
Speaker 1: around the memorial and read the inscriptions or whatever, and
Speaker 1: it's at that point that I thought, Hey, I need
Speaker 1: to write a song about this. All right, old toomer,
Speaker 1: you can't tease us this way. Yeah, well, would you
Speaker 1: like to hear my song? Gee? I thought you could
Speaker 1: ask two precious little Sammy's boys, Ing and Chain born
Speaker 1: to bring the world so many joys. May eleve and
Speaker 1: eighteen eleven was the date of their arrival. Attached at
Speaker 1: the chest, they struggle for survival. Why do you think
Speaker 1: their story matters? Oh my gosh, America was always the
Speaker 1: beacon of the place where somebody could come and build
Speaker 1: a successful life, and they came here with nothing. In fact,
Speaker 1: they themselves were in effect owned. The twins decided, We're
Speaker 1: going to go off and create our own business and
Speaker 1: our own entertainment, and so they worked really, really hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we talk a lot about people
Speaker 1: with disabilities. I mean, they had the ultimate disability. So
Speaker 1: I think it's an incredible, in sparing American immigration story.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really not weird at all that some
Speaker 1: of the family members used to be self conscious about
Speaker 1: being descended from the twins. Who isn't self conscious about
Speaker 1: your family when when you're a kid. I remember being
Speaker 1: afraid that people would find out that I called my
Speaker 1: mother mamita instead of mom. She's Colombian. I know it
Speaker 1: sounds silly, but I was afraid I'd get made fun
Speaker 1: of that it would mark me as different. I outgrew
Speaker 1: that now I'm happy to let you know that I
Speaker 1: called her Mamita. I still do today. The Bunkers have
Speaker 1: a lot to be proud of. Alex Sink, whose real
Speaker 1: name is Adelaide. She's named after her great grandmother, was
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee for Governor of Florida in two thousand ten.
Speaker 1: Another descendant, Caroline Shaw, recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Music,
Speaker 1: and the late Caleb Haines was a decorated veteran of
Speaker 1: both World Wars, and every summer a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: bunkers descend on Mount Airy to celebrate the twins as
Speaker 1: well they should. Chang and Eng were extraordinary. They may
Speaker 1: not have been perfect, far from it, but they had courage.
Speaker 1: You would have thought there would have been at least
Speaker 1: one episode of the Andy Griffith Show that included that
Speaker 1: nodditude that referred to Chang and Hang. But that's that
Speaker 1: just proves how little it was in people's radars. I
Speaker 1: would have loved don nods as Barney Fife coming in
Speaker 1: and say, I swear I saw them right, or I
Speaker 1: saw one of those buckers downtown today. Next time on Mobituaries,
Speaker 1: the death of a Tree and how it uprooted the
Speaker 1: sports world. You know, I just don't like all I
Speaker 1: wanted all people to hate me as much as I
Speaker 1: hate down. I certainly hope you enjoyed this moment. If
Speaker 1: you would please rate and review our podcast. You can
Speaker 1: follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at morocco. For more great content, please
Speaker 1: visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced
Speaker 1: by Megan Dietree and Gideon Evans. Our team of producers
Speaker 1: also includes Megan Marcus, Kate mccauliffe, and me Morocca. It
Speaker 1: was edited by Megan Dietree and engineered by Dan de Zula,
Speaker 1: with additional editing by Sophia Steinerd Evoy. Indispensable support from
Speaker 1: Kay limb Young, Kim Genius Taneski, Kira Wardlow, Richard Roher,
Speaker 1: and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to Dr
Speaker 1: Henore Ford, Alberto Robina, Tanya Jones, Alex Sink, Zach Blackman,
Speaker 1: Gary Rash, Hebert Yates, and the tire Bunker family. Our
Speaker 1: theme music is written by Daniel Hart and, as always,
Speaker 1: undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without whom
Speaker 1: Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries
Speaker 1: the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mobituaries
Speaker 1: the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast.
Speaker 1: Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams
Speaker 1: that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
Speaker 1: presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went could put
Speaker 1: and dragons, Yes, dragons, you see. People used to believe
Speaker 1: the dragons were real until just get the book. You
Speaker 1: can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or
Speaker 1: stop by your local bookstore and look for me when
Speaker 1: I come to your city. Tour information and lots more
Speaker 1: at mobituaries dot com m H