A new book in the Thammasat University Libraries collection should appeal to all readers who care about the international image of Thailand in world history.

The Lives of Chang and Eng: Siam’s Twins in Nineteenth-Century America by Joseph Andrew Orser is published by the University of North Carolina Press.

It gives historical context to the celebrated life story of In and Chun (1811-1874), conjoined twins born in 1811 in the Mae Klong Valley, Samut Songkhram Province, Siam, during the reign of King Rama II. Their father, Ti-aye, a fisherman, was of Chinese origin and their mother, Nok, possibly of Chinese-Malay background, so the boys were known as the Chinese twins in their homeland. Joined at the sternum by a piece of cartilage, the boys were athletic and enjoyed playing badminton and performing tumbling tricks despite their disability. This caught the eye of a traveling British merchant who exported them to America to exhibit them in sideshows.

Renamed Chang and Eng, they would later convert to Christianity and adopt the family name Bunker, as they settled down in North Carolina. They both married and had several children, some of whom fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.  They became so famous as performers that a new term, Siamese twins, was used until fairly recently to describe conjoined twins.

Orser, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, examines the paradox of how Chang and Eng Bunker, although themselves targets of race prejudice, owned African-American slaves in the pre-Civil War era. He also notes how they boldly fought for their own independence from abusive employers a few years after they arrived in America. Several copies of “Chang and Eng: A Novel,” (2000) a fictional account of their adventures by Darin Strauss, are present in the TU Libraries collection:

The Lives of Chang and Eng: Siam’s Twins in Nineteenth-Century America is a serious and informative look at the experiences of two Thai people who achieved international celebrity in the 19th century.

(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)