Kampong Lorong Buangkok, 1964. Liang Heng, a
retired civil servant, finds himself in a
familiar place — the hawker centre where he once
worked as a clerk. The air smells of char kway
teow and something older, something sour. He
hadn’t come back since the Japanese left, but
the ghost of a woman in a cheongsam keeps
appearing near stall 12. She clutches a photo of
a British officer and a Malay girl.
Liang’s memories are sharp — too sharp. The
British had left in 1965, but the spirits didn’t.
He recalls how the colonial administration had
buried records of mixedrace children in the
city’s foundation, their names erased. Now,
they’re rising.
The Witness Protection Programme was never meant
for retirees. A young NS man, Tan Wei, is
assigned to escort him to a safehouse in Toa
Payoh. The rules are clear: no questions, no
contact with the outside world, and no food from
the hawker centres. But Liang can’t stop
thinking about the woman’s photo.
He breaks the rule on Day 3. At a hawker stall,
he asks the cook about a family that disappeared
in 1943. The cook’s face goes blank. “Don’t talk
about that,” he mutters, tossing a coin into the
till. The next morning, the cook is gone. His
stall is empty, his name scratched out.
The ghost follows Liang. It leads him to a
derelict HDB flat in Jalan Besar, where the
walls are etched with names — some Chinese, some
Malay, some English. The floorboards creak like
bones. Liang realises this is where the records
were hidden, and where the spirits are trapped.
Wei discovers Liang’s secret. “You’re not just
running from ghosts,” he says. “You’re running
from history.” The boy is right. The spirits
aren’t just angry — they’re hungry. They want
their stories told, their names remembered.
On the night of the National Day parade, Liang
stands at the edge of the hawker centre, holding
the photo. He speaks the names aloud — hundreds
of them — and the ghosts begin to fade. The
woman in the cheongsam smiles for the first time.
By dawn, the hawker centre is quiet. No more
whispers. No more shadows. Just the smell of
char kway teow and the sound of a new day
beginning.
