Chang, the Chinese Giant (Chang Woo Gow, Chang Yu Sing, Zhan Shichai, 詹 世 釵) was born in Huizhou in Anhui province between 1840-1850. Chang wrote five autobiographies, however, they were imaginative promotional narratives to meet the public’s needs. Like many other circus performers and entertainers with acts such as Chang’s, newspapers, advertisements and other publications about his life are difficult to recognize fact from fiction: the façade versus the person. His age, height and personal details vary greatly. Some publications described him at 10 feet and others at 8 feet tall.⁸⁸

Although Chang exhibited as a giant, records revealed that his appearances did not stigmatize him as many of his contemporaries. One Australia newspaper reported:

Those who were under the expectation that they were to see a more vulgar exhibition of such a giant as would be exhibited at a Richardson's show, must have been agreeably disappointed, for, as we before hinted, Chang is evidently a gentleman of refinement and education.⁸⁹

Venues promoted Chang, similarly to other Chinese performers, as exotic and aggrandized. He drew on these two modes as a strange man from a new unknown world and the aggrandized mode based on a “giant” with high intelligence and learning.  He was promoted as a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of intelligence with the ability to speak ten languages. Chang routinely posed for sellable “giant” photography cards, but he also performed and commodified his exoticized self as well.  He gave speeches in Chinese at exhibitions that his agent translated for the audience, wrote his name in Chinese such as in pencil on a ten-foot wall. Chang exhibited with Chinese decorative objects to entice audience members to consume. He typically dressed in Chinese regal, ornate and embroidered robes holding objects such as fans or water pipes. Chang, like most Chinese performers, objectified his identity with decorative goods as a necessity for the act.⁹⁰

He first publicly appeared in London at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly with his wife, Kin Foo (Foo King or King Fow, known as the Golden Lily or Lily Fair), in 1865-66, along with a Chinese dwarf called Chung Mow. They toured multiple countries, United Kingdom and Europe, including the Paris Exposition in 1867, America, New Zealand and Australia.⁹¹

Chang’s benevolent personification crossed over from his act to real life. While in Australia, he, Kin Foo and other entertainers exhibited and made several appearances to raise money for hospitals and asylums. He also visited charitable institutions to offer patients the opportunity to view him. Chang would donate 200-300 photographs at a time,⁹²knowingly that they were popular and sold very well.

Chang and Kin Foo broke with their agent during their tour in Australia. Despite this, they continued the tour successfully without an agent. A rarity for Chinese performers, they employed agency in the management of their own careers. It is not clear if Chang and Kin Foo were actually husband and wife or if it was an act to promote their presentations. Records indicate that either notion could be true. Kin Foo received second billing to Chang’s in appearances and similarly performed alongside Chinese goods in exhibits. Promotional materials included Kin Foo’s individual images as the Chinese Lady attraction to draw audiences in as well. However, Kin Foo never appeared separately without Chang and not much is known about her outside of her partnership with him. Kin Foo disappears from the historical record when Chang married Catherine Santley, an Englishwoman. The last newspaper report of Kin Foo occurred when she and Mr. and Mrs. Chang leave Australia for Shanghai in 1871.

Chang and Catherine had two sons Edwin, born in Shanghai in 1877, and Ernest, born two years later in Paris.⁹³In 1880,⁹⁴ Chang contracted with P. T. Barnum in America for a few years at a reported $500 a month, a very high fee for the time. Chang was one of the most well-paid attractions of his time. Chang retired in 1890 and the family moved to England. He and Catherine opened a tearoom and Chinese curio shop. Chang died on November 5, 1893 at the age of 50, only a few months after his wife died.⁹⁵According to a local newspaper:

People always found him friendly and affable, and after the first novelty wore off, Chang in his appearances among the residents was always well received and attracted no special attention.⁹⁶