Ralph Modder
Ralph Modder is a veteran Singaporean writer and journalist who worked on newspapers and magazines in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. He was born in Chemor, Perak. At a young age he and his family came to live in Singapore where he was educated. He was in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation from 1942 to 1945.
He recently appeared in a one-hour BBC World Service programme, Fall Of A Fortress, to mark the 60th anniversary of the surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 and a similar programme produced by Australian Television.
Myths And Legends Of Malaysia And Singapore
Compiled & Edited by Ralph Modder & Aeishah Ahmed
ISBN: 9789810831004
Price: SGD 15.00 (w/o GST)
Asian Interest - B Paperback
Horizon Books
This is a selection of some of the best-known myths and legends of East Malaysia (Sarawak and Sabah), West Malaysia (Peninsula Malaysia) and Singapore— four territories that have shared almost similar histories for more than a thousand years.
by Swee Lian
Edited by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810805951
Price: SGD18.00 (w/o GST)
Memoir - Paperback
Horizon Books
This is the true account of the courage and suffering of Swee Liang who, like thousands of other women who were forced into Japanese army brothels during World War II, had withheld their real identities because of the shame their stories would have brought to themselves and their families. Swee Lian was 16 when she was imprisoned and raped by a Japanese Kempeitai (military/secret police) officer and sent to an army brothel in British North Borneo (now Sabah) in 1942. Her parents who were also arrested by the Kempeitai died as the result of torture while in prison. She made an incredible escape to Japanese-occupied Singapore in 1943 where she took refuge in a Buddhist nunnery until the surrender of Japan in 1945. In 1948 she married Choon, her ‘student-days sweetheart’ and a guerrilla fighter, fulfilling a promise they had made before her escape to Singapore. He died in Australia in 1969 where they had settled and where she had lived with members of her family until her death in 1981.
The Gamblers Tree Demonby Ralph Modder
ISBN : 9789810578794
Price : SGD10.00 (w/o GST)
Horror - Paperback
Horizon Books
Gambler Is Save From Tree Demom
Benny Wong's previous best-selling books are : The Boy Who Talks To Ghost and Killer Vampires From Hell. In The Gamblers Tree Demon, he saves the life of his uncle, a gambler, in a daring do-or-die rescue. His uncle was forced to become the `blood slave' of a powerful, blood-thirsty tree demon to whom he offered his own blood, hoping to receive `lucky' lottery numbers.
A Getai Singer's Love Affair With A Ghost
complied by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810580469
Price: SGD15.00 (w/o GST)
Horror - Paperback
Horizon Books
Each year, from the last day of the 6th Lunar Month until the end of the 7th Lunar Month, the souls in hell come to Earth to feast at the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. They rewarded those who were kind to them while they were alive and took revenge on those who had treated them unkindly.
The annual Festival of the Hungry Ghost is celebrated by the Taoists and Buddhists and is attended by spirits who were being punished in hell for crimes they had committed when they were alive. They were permitted to attend the Festival because of their ‘good conduct’ and appeals made to Yen Lo Wang, the Lord of the Underworld, by family members for their temporary release. Some unruly ghosts refused to return to hell at the end of the Festival. They threatened to bring bad luck and even death to those who refused to hide them from Hell Guards who had been sent to arrest them. Some ghosts forced women into having love affairs.
The first Festival was in the Liang dynasty (AD 502-556) when Emperor Wu was told in a dream that he had to feed the starving souls in hell with feast in the 7th Lunar Month
by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810569853
Price: SGD13.00 (w/o GST)
Horror - Paperback
Horizon Books
Benny Wong (The Boy Who Talks to Ghosts) battles against “Killer Vampire From Hell”, another best-selling action-thriller written Benny and his mother, Alice Wong. In this story, Benny Wong follows his Auntie Nancy to the Spirit World where he meets T'a-kung, the Lord of The Hills and Valleys of the peaceful Shang-aya, ‘a region somewhere near Paradise '. T'a-kung asks Benny to help to recapture Ah Chak, the demon vampire, who had escaped from hell with other vampires and returned to the World of the Living. After three thrilling battles with the vampires, Benny heroically recaptures Ah Chak with the help of the powerful ‘Lightning Sword' given to him by T'a-kung.
The Boy Who Talks To Ghost by Benny and Alice Wong
edited by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810503918
Price: SGD13.00 (w/o GST)
Horror - Paperback
Horizon Books
An Incredible True Story!
This a true story about a thirteen-year-old boy Benny Wong, who is able to talk to good ghosts and those who are members of his family. He is also able to see other spirits, evil spirits ones, too!
His parents James and Alice Wong say: “Benny is telling the truth, We're not saying this because he happens to be our son. We were involved in many of the incredible events he describes. It is a sensitive story that concerns our family as well as others who have passed away and who may have families still
living. In order to avoid any harmful publicity, we have not revealed their identities or our own. However, it in way alters the fact that this is a true story.
The Red Cheong-sam And Other Old Tales of Malaya and Singaporeby Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810503901
Price: SGD19.00 (w/o GST)
Fiction - Paperback
Horizon Books
The thirty-one stories selected for this volume portray the scandalous, tragic, violent, romantic and lighter sides of life at various levels of the segregated English and Asian communities in Malaya (now Malaysia ) and Singapore under British colonial rule. It began with the founding of Singapore in 1819 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company. It ended during the dismantling process of the British Empire at the end of World War II in 1945.
The stories originated from various sources and were passed on by word-of-mouth or recalled from memory and jotted down over a period of several years. While many were ‘lost in time,' others may have found their way into Far Eastern stories by Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad.
The ‘good old (colonial) days' may still be remembered with nostalgia by a steadily dwindling number of survivors from that era or recalled with mixed feelings by others who might ask, ‘What were so good about those days, anyway?' – remembering the eternal clashes of cultures and those between peoples from two vastly different moulds. It had prompted Kipling to note, ‘Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.'
But, despite the ‘twain' not meeting or whether they did meet without anyone noticing, life moved on, or stumbled along, with all its inherited (Eastern and Western) dogmas, stigmas and human frailties; some of which are recounted in this volume.
Curse of the Pontianak by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810503895
Price: SGD13.00 (w/o GST)
Horror - Paperback
Horizon Books
While the West has been inundated with stories and movies about blood-sucking vampires, werewolves, zombies and evil monsters of practically every description, little has been heard of a seductive, half-human female demon - the pontianak - that for a thousand years or more has caused more terror among the millions of inhabitants of Malaysia and Indonesia than any other evil spirit. These 'beautiful killers from hell' as they are sometimes called, are said to be the spirits of women who had died in childbirth and were jealous of pregnant women whom they killed. They appeared as large birds with grotesque women's faces, long tresses covering their black feathers and had sharp claws.
The stories presented in this book were mostly passed down by word-of-mouth over a period of time and have no doubt suffered varying degrees of distortion in the process as would be expected of most unaccredited narratives. Consequently, it was necessary to fictionise the names of the characters in the stories.
The Singapore Chinese Massacre by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810503888
Price: SGD18.00 (w/o GST)
History - Paperback
Horizon Books
After the British Had Surrendered Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, Lt. Gen. Yamashita, commander of the victorious 25th Army, ordered that male Chinese had to 'register' at various centres. The purpose was to discover 'anti-Japanese elements among the Chinese population', in particular Chinese guerrilla-volunteers who had fought courageously when the Japanese invaded Singapore. Thousands of Chinese were picked out at random by the Kempeitai, the dreaded Japanese secret police. The victims were taken to remote places, mostly beaches and shot.
A Bristish War Crimes Court in Singapore in 1947 sentenced several senior Japanese army officers to death or to long prison terms for their parts in the massacre, also known as 'Sook Ching' Massacre ('Sook Ching' meaning 'purification by purge' Chinese) The Japanese had admitted that 5,000 were executed while there were claims the number was about 50,000. The actual number is unknown.
by Ralph Modder
ISBN: 9789810455682
Price: SGD16.50 (w/o GST)
Fiction - Paperback
Horizon Books
This is a story about three women. It is set in China and Singapore during the mid-1920s, in Britain during the World War II (1939-1945) and in 1947 post-war Singapore. Ching-ling, the main character, vividly recounts the traumatic and bizarre circumstances that had besieged her life and her mother's.
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