Palace of Ghosts: Singapore's Untold History

Despite the passing centuries traversed by the pendulum of time, some things in Southeast Asia never seem to change: piracy is one of them. Once in a while, it grabs a 21st-century newspaper headline; two hundred years ago, however, it was the persistent, recurring and ongoing issue of the times. The larger-than-life character of Captain John Dill Ross appears in the fourth chapter of Palace of Ghosts . He achieved near celebrity status among the residents of Singapore when news broke about his almost calamitous encounter fighting off an against-the-odds pirate attack off the coast of northwest Borneo in the middle of the 19th-century. Piracy had long been the scourge of shipping in the region and was an ever-present topic of conversation over dinner. When Captain Ross’s skirmish hit the newspaper headlines, it was the talk of the town for months! Captain Ross is important to the story because he was the first person to build a grand residence on the plot of land that was eventually to...

I am far from any kind of expert in the field of etymology nor in the Malay language. However, a quick survey of the existing research on the topic provides plenty of food for thought and, like the previous few blog posts, is intended to provide context for the story of Palace of Ghosts. Some of the explanations may be plausible, but cannot be undisputedly proven. The point is to show that Singapore and the surrounding islands and shorelines are far from being disconnected from history. What is important is to strip away the barriers which blur perceptions of the past. Look beyond the modern inventions of borders and cities to see more clearly how the present links to the past and vice versa. The people who today live in territories once occupied by the Johor-Sultanate should look to the island of Sumatra to understand where the people who created the first trading hubs in area originally came from. The zone where mainland Southeast Asia (SEA) meets maritime SEA seems to lack a catchy ...

While Palace of Ghosts makes no claim to be a history of Singapore, it is a Singapore story based on real events, and one that looks beyond the founding narrative of Raffles and 1819. The story begins earlier not to challenge any existing narrative, official or otherwise, but simply because that is where a more logical beginning point exists relative to the linked events that subsequently transpired. The idea of continuity – the links in the historical chain of events connecting the past to the present and extending into the future - arises time and again throughout Palace of Ghosts. It’s opposite, discontinuity, is an ever-present shadow, lurking in the background. I preferred, however, the notion of erasure over discontinuity as that shadow, because in many unfortunate cases erasure is the cause of discontinuity. But erasure can be a slow process because of evidence that stubbornly continues to exist. In Palace of Ghosts Istana Tyersall and Istana Woodneuk – the two palaces which fea...