(The Woman Who Told History – No. 1433)
As a titan figure in the Chinese comedy industry, Zhao Benshan has always been loved by the public, and the performance art of his sketches has almost reached the peak, known as China's Chaplin, and no one can still surpass it. But when Zhao Benshan once performed in the United States, he was snubbed and dismissed. The reason is that he intentionally or unintentionally "discriminates and ridicules" people with disabilities on stage. That is, Zhao Benshan likes to imitate some actions of disabled people on stage to please the public, which is an immoral behavior in the eyes of Americans. Because people with disabilities have the same dignity in life as healthy people, they should not be made fun of.
Coincidentally, there is a Chinese writer Yan Lianke, in his novels
"Living"
There are also a lot of depictions of people with disabilities. In his pen, an acrobatic troupe composed of disabled people has won many "applause" in performances in various places, and even created a lot of economic benefits. Yan Lianke also has a meticulous depiction of the disabled in his works. Although both depict disabled people, his novels and Zhao Benshan's sketches are not yet a realm. In it, the author places great sympathy on the disabled, and even sharply ridicules and criticizes the healthy person in order to express sympathy for the misfortune of the disabled.
Regardless of what Zhao Benshan and Yan Lianke intend, they have raised a question for us, how should healthy people view all kinds of disabled people in society? Should I make fun of it? Should I be sympathetic? Should they be sympathetic to their entrepreneurship, should they be supported or should they be politely rejected? This article also describes issues related to people with disabilities. A pair of siamese brothers, they were once treated as monsters, as "national treasures", as money-making machines,
Eventually they started their own business, and after their success, the brothers married a pair of sisters and gave birth to 22 children. But what happened to the two ill-fated Siamese brothers?
(1) From "monster" to "national treasure"
Although in theory, all people in the world are created equal, in fact, they are never equal. For example, a naturally disabled person, since he came to the human world, is not on the same level as a healthy person. Therefore, many "cruel" parents will discard the naturally disabled children they give birth to, either abandoning them and leaving them to fend for themselves, or directly killing them. But there are also some soft-hearted parents who will raise children born with disabilities.
The story takes place 200 years ago in the country of Siam, which is now Thailand.
On May 11, 1811, a pair of twin boys were born in a fisherman's house in Siam. However, the child's parents have not had time to celebrate and fall into great pain. Because the twins are conjoined babies! The other parts of the two children are separated, each with its own head, each with its own arms and legs, but the chest cavity in the middle is connected, that is, the two share a liver!
Twins themselves are relatively rare, and conjoined babies are surprisingly rare. According to scientific statistics, the chance of pregnant women conceiving conjoined babies is only one in five to one in 100,000, and most conjoined twins die during the embryonic stage, that is, the successful delivery rate of conjoined babies is only about one in 200,000, and even fewer can eventually grow into adults, only about one in 10 million!
So for this fisherman, this is simply too unfortunate.
In the eyes of the average person, Conjoined people are standard naturally disabled people, and they are
"Freak"
。 At that time, according to the level of medicine, it was impossible to separate the twins. So everyone advises the couple to abandon the child, because such a freak itself is difficult to raise, even if it is raised as an adult, it is a very troublesome thing, how do they live? How to get married and have children? In short, their birth was a disaster.
The father of the conjoined baby boys is Chinese, who immigrated abroad; the mother is of mixed Chinese-Thai descent. They have Chinese tradition of benevolence and kindness, especially the obligation and responsibility for the upbringing of their children, they can't give up their own flesh and blood, reluctant to abandon them, so they bear the pressure and leave their children behind. They gave the children their names, one called Eng and the other Chang, and the word "en, chang" means "left and right" in Thai.
Because after all, there are special disabilities, the growth of the two conjoined brothers has paid a great price for their parents. For example, when a child cries, it is certainly not just one who is crying. Even if one does not cry, under the infection of the other, he will cry; if you pick up a child, you must bring the other child, you must carefully pick up both children at the same time, and there must be no mistakes, once one accidentally falls, the other must lose his heart!
When feeding, both must be fed at the same time.
If you feed your brother first, if your brother is in a hurry, he will shake around and the brother will not be able to eat. So the mother has to hold a child in each hand at the same time to breastfeed, which is very tiring.
It's just as cumbersome when feeding. It's just as troublesome when it comes to dressing. Because the two children do not understand things, once you give one service first, the other can't wait, he will strike at the brother in front of him. If the two brothers fight, it is still very difficult to fight. Because the two are originally connected, the two brothers hug each other and beat each other, even biting each other's cheeks, biting each other's noses and ears, you simply can't get them apart. If you use less force, you can't pull it apart, and if you use it harder, you may completely pull the two people apart, then both of them will die.
As a result, the growth of the siamese brothers tormented their parents. In particular, Eun and Chang are still "monsters" in the eyes of others, and they have been discriminated against and ridiculed a lot in the process of growing up.
But their intelligence is no different from ordinary people. Under the careful care and nurturing of their parents, the brothers can move normally and even learn to run and swim. They live like normal people and can even help their parents with simple housework and farm work. In fact, the efficiency of their work is not low, as long as they cooperate well, two people can really top two people.
When Eun and Chang grew up, their luck came,
From a pair of monsters to a "national treasure".
The deeds of the siamese brothers did not go away, and eventually spread to the palace. King Rama III was so interested in this that he personally took them to the palace as "envoys". But they were not really envoys, and the king was actually for fun, keeping the brothers in the palace for his own amusement. With foreign guests, nature naturally pulls them out like national treasures for people to admire.
(2) From "national treasure" to "money-making machine"
In 1829, the Scottish merchant Robert Hunter came to Siam, and King Rama III invited him to the palace for a banquet, and naturally showed him his national treasure, the Enchang brothers. Hunter saw the brothers and saw the business opportunity, and he offered the king to buy them away.
Of course, the king was reluctant to do so, but driven by profit, Rama III finally decided to sell the siamese brothers as merchandise to Scottish merchants.
The shrewd Hunter eventually exchanged several dancers and a telescope for the Enchang brothers to Rama III. Of course he paid the brothers' parents five hundred pounds and then took them with them. Of course, Hunter said it very well, saying that he took the brothers to Europe to see the world to make money, and he couldn't lose money. The parents agreed, despite their reluctance. In this way, the Enchang brothers boarded a ship to Boston.
Hunter founded a circus-like institution and took the Enchang brothers everywhere to perform. The brothers soon became popular and became money-making machines for the circus. As mentioned earlier, the intelligence of the two brothers is normal, for a long time, as their minds gradually mature, the two people gradually have a great dislike for this kind of applause and applause from the audience, because they have seen too much bad information in people's eyes:
Surprise, ridicule, horror and even discrimination
。 They feel like clowns for people to play with, and their self-esteem is greatly hurt.
They earn enough money for their bosses, but they also lose themselves. They became the private property of others, and they were homeless. So the brothers discussed how to get out of this predicament. They bear the burden of humiliation, desperately trying to make money for their bosses, while also secretly saving money for themselves.
By 1839, the 28-year-old brothers had been in Europe for a decade. Over the years, they have learned English and learned some ways of doing things. After all, the two are wiser than one, they unite, do not cooperate with the boss, Hunter has no way, had to agree to terminate the contract with them. In the end, the brothers paid a redemption fee and went to the United States to start their new "independent" life.
Of course, at the beginning, the two siamese brothers did not have any means to make money, after all, it was very inconvenient to go out to work, and the two were connected together. So they had to go back to their old business, which was to continue to perform on stage. However, the performance at this time is their personal initiative, so they act very calmly. So, as before, the brothers made a lot of money.
(3) Starting a business and starting a family
After a few more years, the Enchang brothers were really tired of the endless performance life, and they had saved a lot of money, so they decided to change their careers and start a business again. Later they bought a farm in North Carolina and settled down. Since then, they have moved to a new life, even their names have changed, and they have been called ever since
"Bunker Brothers".
They hope to say goodbye to the awkward life of the past and create another wonderful life of their own.
The Bunker brothers not only worked hard and their own, but also hired a few helpers to work for them on the farm. Their lives gradually stabilized, and they became richer and richer. Later, like ordinary people, they also began to think about how to start a family.
In April 1843, the Bunker brothers were in their early 30s, prosperous, and each of them had a table of talents, and a fairly good family business with a fixed income, and naturally they could also harvest love. Legendaryly, a pair of sisters from the Yeats family in The United Kingdom, Adelaide Yates and Sarah Anne, took a fancy to their brothers. So a pair of brothers married a pair of sisters, which is really a natural pair of two, two enviable marriages.
After marriage, with the careful care of the Yeats sisters, the life of the Bunker brothers was fundamentally improved, just like Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, the two couples lived happily together. Moreover, the brothers were blessed with a lot of children, and they had a total of 22 children, of which the older brother had 12 children and the younger brother had 10 children. Two families, or dozens of families to be exact, lived a quiet and prosperous life on the farm.
(4) Not only was born on the same day of the same month of the same year, but also died on the same day of the same month of the same year
In this way, they lived for more than ten years. Then, the days of the two brothers and two sisters fluctuated.
After all, the Siamese are too noticeable, and the Siamese brothers marry a pair of sisters, and they are too able to give birth - the United States does not engage in family planning, you can have children at will - so that it is inevitable that many people are interested in these two strange couples, they can not help but receive great "attention" from people again, can not help but be some "ridicule" and "questioning" of people again, such as how these two couples live a married life and so on. This made the sisters very embarrassed, and they simply looked at themselves in the face of people's strange eyes. So they reluctantly proposed to separate from their respective husbands.
However, after the Leaves sisters left, the brothers' lives were not lonely, after all, they had many children, and the old brothers could still enjoy the joy of heaven.
However, such days did not last long, and the United States erupted famously
Civil war.
The brothers' farm was greatly affected, and in the war-torn years, their lives fell into a very difficult situation...
In the early morning of January 17, 1874,
The brother of the conjoined brothers died of cerebral thrombosis and contracting bronchitis;
When the doctor arrives to try to save his brother, he does not escape the threat of death. Because the two belonged to the same liver, and even their blood flowed in their veins, under the medical conditions at that time, one died and the other was not spared. So three hours later, my brother died. This pair of brothers was not only born on the same day in the same month of the same year, but also died on the same day of the same month of the same year, which can be described as a pair of true brothers of life and death!
Enchang brothers, or Bunker brothers, as a pair of naturally disabled people, they did not lose confidence and courage in life, they worked hard to start a business, and harvested love, and truly achieved multiple harvests of career, family, and love; although they did not live long enough, their 63 years of life were not wasted.
They deserve to be respected!
(Text/Woman Who Tells History: Flowers Don't Go)