Otterblog

The story of Eng and Chang Bunker is one for the ages, as our story this morning made clear.

The phrase Siamese twins is now considered pejorative, and rightly so. The preferred word is “conjoined.” But what I find so fascinating about the Bunkers and this history is that the name was appropriate for them. They were twins—of a fashion—and they were from Siam, now Thailand. And their life, from Asia, to the carnival life, to country gentlemen married to sisters in the mountains of North Carolina is an incredible journey.

Historians, writers and filmmakers have been wrestling with the Bunkers—metaphorically speaking—for years. And there is a whole body of work about them. Darin Strauss’s Chang and Eng is an imagined narration by Chang of their life together. I don’t know how much of it is true, but it is a lyrical novel.

Blue Ridge Country wrote about the Bunkers some time back.

But for my money, the best thing I’ve seen recently was a piece in June 2006 in National Geographic on the Bunkers and their descendants, who now live in and around Mount Airy.

Getting some recognition: Our Raleigh correspondent, James Romoser, scored an exclusive yesterday, with an interview of Barack Obama and his regret over remarks that seemed to denigrate small-town, rural America. The story went viral, and we’ve got something like 5 pages of comments on JournalNow. Incredible. Another example of how the Web is changing politics and political reporting.