Alone for the first time and away from her family in rural Philippines, Rosa Dimaano arrives in the cosmopolitan city state of Singapore to work as a maid. Her employers Mr and Mrs Teo runs a Chinese Teochew dialect opera troupe takes well to their new domestic help. So do their mentally disabled son, Ah Soon. In Chinese superstition, the seventh month of the lunar calendar is regarded as the month when the gates of hell open for forsaken spirits to walk the earth for 30 days. Unknown to Rosa, she arrives on the eve and her hell is about to begin.

A dramatic thriller that tells the engaging and touching stories of immigrants and natives during the time leading up to the independence of Singapore. The protagonists were a part of history in the making; they become the pioneer generation who live to see beyond the prejudice and fear of racial hatred and ultimately face the challenge of nation building - a mirror reflecting the fragility of racial harmony in our world today.