Although Othman Wok is considered one of modern Singapore's Founding Fathers, he was not a member of the original 1959 PAP cabinet which came to power when Singapore attained self-rule. Othman Wok won a four-corner fight in the Pasir Panjang constituency during the 1963 General Election and in that year, he became Singapore's first Minister for Social Affairs.
As a young journalist, Othman Wok wrote a series of ghost stories in Jawi. These stories were printed in Mastika, a publication of the Utusan Melayu Press. Some of the stories were later translated into English and compiled in a collection entitled Malayan Horror: Macabre tales of Singapore and Malaysia in the 50's.
In the preface of Malayan Horror, Othman Wok wrote that some of the stories were related to him by friends and acquaintances who have experienced them. Some were based on his imagination. "I leave it to you to guess which are real and which are not." Othman Wok also mentioned that almost all the stories were written late at night in his study when his family were asleep. "There have been occasions when I experienced chilling sensations down my spine as though I myself was involved in the happenings."
One of the stories, entitled "Visitor from the Coffin" is about a Malay man by the name of Hamid who runs a photo studio. One evening at 7:30pm, an old Chinese neighbour by the name of Ah Fook. suddenly appears to have his photograph taken. Ah Fook is the towkay of a grocery store near the studio. Hamid observes that Ah Fook looks very sickly and has a corpse-like profession.
Hamid got his equipment ready and by the time he is ready to take the photo, Ah Fook is no longer there. Hamid goes to look for Ah Fook at the grocery store, only to learn that the old man had died. Ah Fook was on his way to taking a photo as he had never been photographed in his life. Ah Fook fell down a staircase and broke his head. He died at 7:30pm!
Hamid rushed back to his studio to develop the few shots he had taken while trying to adjust the camera's focus: "Twenty minutes later, as he studied the picture, he saw what he had dreadfully expected all this time. The stool and the side-table stood forlornly. Of Ah Fook, the towkay, there was not a trace."
In "Under the Banyan Tree", a sickly young man by the name of Said goes out one night and meets a woman under a banyan tree. She was very sad and he tries to console her. Said then chivalrously walks her back to her home. Longing to meet her again, Said waits night after night for a glimpse of her, but to no avail. He then locates her home only to find nothing there. A postmaster tells Said that there used to be a house on this land. A father and his daughter lived there. The father intervened in his daughter's relationship and she disappeared. The banyan tree was where she used to meet her lover.
It is inferred, but not outrightly stated that the mysterious woman Said met under the banyan tree is the daughter. Said's infatuation with the mysterious woman causes his condition to worsen and he eventually takes his life.
"A Mosque in the Jungle" is a tale narrated by a soldier who is lost in the jungle while fighting "Communist terrorists" (a reference to the Malayan Emergency). The soldier remembers a belief that if one is lost in the jungle, one can pray to the jungle spirit for guidance. He is skeptical about this, but then encounters an old man who brings him to a mosque and suggests that he sleep on an enormous tree, the top of which has been levelled and turned into a bunk. The soldier observes people coming to the mosque to pray and recite the Quran. When the believers have left, the old man cautions the soldier about crocodiles who visit the mosque when it is deserted.
The next morning, the soldier woke up and found that he had been sleeping on the bough of a tree in the middle of a vast swamp. There was no mosque and no village!
There are twenty tales in Malayan Horror. Beside being a collection of ghost stories, it is also a document of an era when human beings, uncluttered by technology, could only rely on words, stories and imagination to access another realm.
Lee Yue Heng (18/01/2025)