Together

                  Together

            A poem by George of Thailand

              For Chang and Eng of Siam

Together,                                        

Joined from before birth,

Separated only by death,

You,

Chang and Eng,

The original Siamese twins,

Never left each other’s side:

Don’t we all long for

Such a life companion?

Be careful what you wish for!

Together

You fathered 21 children,

Chang 11, Eng 10,

Chang’s children had their mother

Eng’s children had their mother,

Separate mothers,

Mothers who were sisters!

Together

You toured the whole world;

You who were born

Poor in a small Thai village becoming

Rich Southern Gentlemen Farmers,

Plantation and slave owners in

North Carolina.

Together

You became poor again,

Losing your slaves

In a war between peoples

Who wanted to separate

Just as you did.

Together

You died,

On the same day,

At the same hour:

You, Chang, of natural causes,

Followed by

You, Eng,

Who on seeing your dead twin,

Died, some say, of fright.

Scared to death, indeed!

When first I learned of this,

My reaction was:

Not of fright but of love!

I’m such a romantic!

Now, many years later,

Eleven years older than you,

Chang and Eng

When you died,

Separated from my twin

These 22 years,

I too believe you, Eng,

Died of fright.

Together,

Oh, so very much

Together for 62 years,

The mere thought of

Living alone,

A Lone Twin,

Scared you to death.

Together,                                                         

We, Jimmy and Georgie,

Thank you

Khop khun krap!

For being not afraid

To die

Together.

July 23, 2011

A Lone Twin in Siam: Thinking of Siamese Twins and Cats. And What about Siamese Twin Siamese Cats?

Siam gave the West Siamese cats and Siamese twins.  The original Siamese twins were Eng and Chang Bunker, known in Thailand as the Chinese Twins because of their Chinese father.  In the case of the cats, they originated in Siam.  But Siamese twins, of course, did not.  There are identical twins joined together physically in all parts of the world.  Siam then its other word for itself, Thailand, or officially the Kingdom of Thailand.  And the West thought it would be "politically correct" to start calling Siamese twins conjoined twins.  Why not Thai twins? How ironic that would sound, two twins tied together indeed!  But the cat world got to keep their Siamese cats. Anyway, at the basis of much of this is the fact that Thais don't speak English, do not share our poor alphabet.  Indeed, our alphabet seems poor with its 26 letters (5 vowels and 21 consonants) compared to the Thai alphabet with its 73 letters ( 42 consonants and 31 vowels)!  So you can appreciate the problem of trying to represent Thai sounds with only about half the letters.  This give rise to many different ways to represent the sound of Thai words using the English alphabet.   Oh, yes, and the Thai language has five distinct tones!

Here's a sentence in English translated into Thai:  Siamese twins are not all from Thailand but the Bunker twins were from Thailand.  ฝาแฝดสยามไม่ได้ทั้งหมดจากประเทศไทย แต่ฝาแฝด Bunker ถูกจากประเทศไทย  See what I mean?  Well we could all understand one word anyway!

The Bunker boys were born in Thailand in 1811 and died in North Carolina in 1874.  Chang died first of natural causes.  Moments after, Eng died.  Some say he died of fright.  I have my own ideas on the question, but I'll leave that for my next posting.

A Mystical Bond

Following is a copy of an article published by the Washington Post about Jimmy and me:

Things Twins, Links

Today I added "Things Twins, Links" on this blog.  It is to your right.  I will list any links on twins which I think might be of interest to readers of Twins in a World of Singletons.  I have started off with links to articles on Nancy Segal.  From this researcher and author, I have learned much about what it means to be a twin.  Although she dispels much of the mystique surrounding twins, she illuminates the mystery that twins truly present to the world.  Enjoy reading!

My Twin Above All!

Twins have a relationship few understand

When I was teaching in the Boston Public Schools system back in 1975, I had a pair of identical twins in my class. One was with me in the morning session and the other was with me in the afternoon session. Their schedule was such that they did not see each other until they returned home at the end of the school day. Jose and Jesus, young Puerto Ricans, were studying in my Bilingual Business Skills Program

Once I asked Jose, "If you had to lose everyone in your family except one, which one would you choose not to lose?" Without any hesitation he responded, "Jose!" Later in the same day I asked Jesus the same question. He likewise answered, "Jesus!" My twin Jimmy and I had previously asked ourselves the same question. We both answered with the other's name. So of course I saw nothing strange in the way Jesus and Jose had responded. There is nothing unusual in this special, sort of mystical, bond twins everywhere seem to have, especially identical twins.

Later it occurred to me to ask some singletons the same question. Not one singleton chose any member of their family other than their mother or their father, except in one case: The singleton chose his grandmother!  A couple of singletons asked me, "Why would you ever choose your brother over your parents?"  My response was that we are twins first, then brothers.

My conclusion: Most twins, I believe, will choose one's twin over all others precisely because he or she is one's twin, not because he is our brother or she is our sister. Often a non-twin will say "my twin brothers"; however, when a male twin is talking about his identical twin, twin brother is a redundancy. "My twin" is quite sufficient.

Wombmates!

Mysteries of Life Before Birth...

The expression "my twin brother" or "my twin sister" is a redundancy. If you are a twin, you and your twin are by definition siblings. Brother and sister both mean having the same parents.

There is one historic exception to the statement that twins have the same parents.

After World War II, a West German woman gave birth to twin boys, fraternal twins: one was white and one was black. The doctors were stymied. How could this be? They investigated and found no African relative in either the woman's family nor in the man's family. They searched further and discovered that right after the woman had had sex with the German, she had sex with an African-American soldier stationed in Germany. Later she married the German who accepted that he was the father. So although it's possible that twins not have the same father, they always have the same mother! In the case of identical twins, both twins have the very same parents, of course.

Then there is another twist to consider with respect to identical twins.

My twin and I certainly had the same mother and father.  However, as in all conceptions, father's contribution and mother's contribution joined to create a zygote; that is, a fertilized egg.  How romantic!  Now in singletons, the zygote goes on to become the little one they call their son or daughter.  But in identical twins, the zygote, for still unknown reasons, splits, thus producing two little ones where before there was only one.  Now that, my dear readers, is surely romantic!  From two, one.  From one, two.

Now the philosophical questions becomes, If little Jimmy and Georgie came about from the splitting zygote mommy and daddy made, can't it, the fertilized egg, be considered the twins' immediate parent, relegating Mr. and Mrs. Ross to the role of mediate parents?  Your meditation for the day.  Mine for a lifetime.

Famous Twins!

 We were always in the spotlight!

We were the first identical twins born in our hometown, Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1939. The story appeared in the Framingham News.

Two years later, a reporter and a photographer came to cover the celebration of our two-year birthday (photo in my first posting, Twins in a World of Singletons).

Our photos and a few lines appeared in the Framingham News when we took our vows in the Paulist Fathers, a congregation of priests in the Catholic Church (photo above).

On July 10, 1988, the Washington Post Magazine published a cover story on us by Sandra Boodman entitled A Mystical Bond.The occasion was our participation in a study on the effectiveness of AZT at the National Institutes of Health. My twin had recently been diagnosed with AIDS.

In April of 1989, the announcement of my twin's death appeared in the local Framingham newspaper.

Yes, we were always in the spotlight.

Twins in a World of Singletons

Before I was born on February 5, 1939, I had a unique experience for a human being: I had a womb-mate!

Identical twins, we were named George and James by our parents. We called each other Georgie and Jimmy. Others called us by many names: Georgie and Jimmy, George and Jim, Twinny, Your-Other-Half, Your-Better-Half, Which-One-Are-You-Anyway?

We began our life together. After high school, we went into a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood together. Three years later, in 1962, Jimmy left the seminary. For the first time since our conception we occupied separate residences.

I left the seminary two years after Jimmy and returned to our parents' home. Jimmy was in college living away from home. Three months later, I joined the United States Peace Corps, went off to St. Louis and then to Puerto Rico for training, and at the beginning of 1965 I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica. Now my twin and I were living in separate countries.

I married a Costa Rican girl in 1966 and took up permanent residence in Costa Rica. We had four children. In 1974, I returned to the United States with my young family.

We stayed for three months in Boston with my twin, until he moved to San Francisco to explore and enjoy his newly discovered homosexuality. Now we were living on opposite coasts of the country. In September of 1988, I moved out to San Francisco to take care of my twin who was dying of AIDS. He died on March 31, 1989. After 50 years, our separation was complete. Or was it?  Thus this blog....