The full series of feature stories and photos were first published in The New Paper over several days in November 2015. The features won the Singapore Press Holdings Monthly Newscom Award (Feature of the Month). A selected few can be found below, including a personal column after the family’s reunion and return to Singapore.
PHOTOS AND TEXT BY HOE PEI SHAN
'McRefugees' spending the night in one of Hong Kong's many fast food outlets.
'McRefugee' Singaporean mum homeless in HK after losing savings
For years, her son had feared the worst. Had his missing mother been kidnapped? Murdered?
Ms Mary Seow had disappeared more than four years ago, abandoning her only child, Mr Edward Goh, then aged 24.
She had suddenly sold their home, a four-room flat in Boon Keng.
But after years of silence and a missing person's police report, a surprise: Ms Seow has been living on the streets of Hong Kong as a "McRefugee", Mr Goh learnt from news reports over the weekend.
A McRefugee is a term used to describe homeless individuals who seek overnight shelter at 24-hour McDonald's outlets in Hong Kong.
An Associated Press report had mentioned the 60-year-old Ms Seow in a feature on McRefugees that appeared online on Friday.
The New Paper followed up with a confirmation by Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Ms Seow had been located.
An emotional Mr Goh said over the phone yesterday: "I was like, okay, this is real, this is my mother - the age, the situation, the name, they fit what I know.
"I was relieved that she is alive but sad at the same time because of her situation."
"I didn't expect her to be homeless... You can abandon your family but make sure you abandon them for a better life, make sure you are living well."
His mother was a single parent, and the two of them had lived with his maternal grandparents in the Boon Keng flat.
Ms Seow's troubles began a decade ago, after she met a female Chinese national at Paya Lebar Methodist Church.
Mr Goh, who is now 28 and works as an invoice processor in the oil and gas industry, said the woman convinced his mother to marry a fellow Chinese national, whom she claimed to be her uncle.
Marriage records checked by TNP listed his name as Mr Li Shiren. The sudden union occurred in 2008.
Mr Goh said he found out about the relationship only when his mother brought the man home to live with them.
"I didn't even know his name. I was quite upset.
"My grandmother was most upset because in the first place, she didn't trust any of them," said Mr Goh, referring to the two Chinese nationals.
"To me, it was like he was invading our home. But I bottled up everything. I adopted a heck-care attitude."
The man took off less than six months later and was never seen again.
Ms Seow's uncle, Mr Roland Seow, 59, told TNP on Monday: "This was when her church friend pressured her to sell her HDB flat, threatening her that if she kept the flat, the man, as her husband, would have a right of share to the flat."
Mr Seow, a property agent, said his niece told him later that she had been tricked by her church friend and that the marriage had been a sham.
It was never consummated, she told him.
The woman convinced Ms Seow to use the cash proceeds from the sale of the flat and her Central Provident Fund savings to invest in a transportation company in China, added Mr Seow.
His niece then began making trips to China alone.
In February 2011, she told Mr Goh over dinner that she would be leaving for another visit, this time for a month.
That was the last time Mr Goh saw his mother.
After multiple attempts to reach her, he filed a missing person's report with the police. A few months later, she called him out of the blue from China.
"She told me that she was sorry... that the money was gone, she was cheated out of it," he said.
"My mother ended the call by telling me she loved me. I couldn't think of what to say to her and she just cut off the line. That was the last time I spoke to her."
Since then, both of Mr Goh's grandparents have died, leaving him to live on his own in a rented room, which costs $600 from his monthly $2,000 salary.
His granduncle, Mr Seow, provided emotional and financial support. But it wasn't enough to stop Mr Goh from fearing the worst.
"We hear stories of syndicates in China that kidnap people and sell their organs; there was always this fear," said Mr Goh.
"Eventually, over the years, I became mentally prepared that she was not coming back but at the same time, I also wished I was wrong."
Now, with news that his mother has been found, all Mr Goh wants is to bring her home.
He plans to fly to Hong Kong when he has saved up enough money for the trip.
"I know she is scared to lose face (from) the guilt of the things that happened. I feel she really doesn't want to share that with people," he said.
"The top priority is to bring her back. It is going to be very weird and awkward for both of us, there is no denying that.
"But I don't want her to be sorry to anyone, or for anything she has done. The past is the past, just forget about it, anything can be solved - that is what I wish to tell her."
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Son surprises Singaporean McRefugee mum with visit in Hong Kong
She turned the corner and stopped in her tracks.
Ms Mary Seow, 60, could not believe her eyes.
Her only son, whom she had last seen in person more than four years ago, was sitting on a bench just metres away.
The single mum had abruptly sold the flat she shared with her son, Mr Edward Goh, some five years ago.
She then became uncontactable shortly after leaving for China for business in 2011.
Mr Goh filed a missing person's report later that year. He found out only last week through news reports that his mother was living in Hong Kong as a McRefugee - a homeless individual seeking overnight shelter at 24-hour McDonald's outlets.
He planned a surprise visit to Hong Kong with the help of several kind readers of The New Paper, which reported on Ms Seow's struggles as a McRefugee and the challenges Mr Goh, a 28-year-old invoice processor earning $2,000 a month, faced in trying to get her back to Singapore. (See report at right.)
Unlike their video call on Tuesday, when they saw each other and spoke for the first time in more than four years, there were no tears at their reunion yesterday.
A stunned Ms Seow took a moment to process the first sight of her son in person, then rolled up a piece of paper in her hand and swung it at him, as a beating for making the unexpected appearance.
Mr Goh played along, yelping and trying to dodge the blows, as smiles flashed across both their faces.
He had been worrying that his mother would refuse to meet him if she knew he was travelling to Hong Kong.
"I was shocked, not angry," said Ms Seow afterwards.
"How can I be angry, he is doing this for my good. I'm definitely happy to see him even though if I had known, I probably would not have wanted to go meet him.
"But I understand why he did this. If I were him, I would have done the same."
Over their first meal together since their long separation, a lunch at a fast-food cha can teng (Hong Kong-style tea restaurant), Mr Goh got glimpses into his mother's life in Hong Kong.
Ms Seow spoke of the hasty showers she has taken in public toilets, how she scrimped over her meals for fear of running out of money and the nights she spent at McDonald's, sleeping among diners.
"It's not that I was not paiseh (Hokkien for embarrassed), but when you think about surviving, embarrassment is not important," she said.
"I've been in Hong Kong for so many months but never had a proper meal on my own. How to afford?"
But yesterday, there was reason to splurge HK$120 (S$22) on claypot rice and egg waffles for lunch - luxuries in Ms Seow's McRefugee life.
The lunch became an occasion to celebrate for Mr Goh after he managed to coax his mother to leave her tough life in Hong Kong behind and follow him back to Singapore.
He said: "It's not easy to hear all these things from her, how she spent all this time to save, to survive.
"She had to go through all these hardships. It makes me feel that more could have been done for her if we had known.
"What I had gone through over the past few years pales in comparison to what she has gone through.
"People say I'm strong but at the end of the day, she's the one who's the strongest."
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Strangers help son reunite with mum
Five days after The New Paper first reported on the plight of Singaporean McRefugee Mary Seow, the calls and e-mails continue to stream in.
Dozens of inquiries came from Singaporean individuals and companies at home and abroad, all wanting to know the same thing: How can they help the family?
The outpouring of support and offers of aid paved the way for Ms Seow's son, Mr Edward Goh, to travel to Hong Kong in a bid to bring his mother home to Singapore.
One of her old friends helped Mr Goh pay for his airfare to Hong Kong.
A Singaporean working in Hong Kong then took the earliest train to meet Mr Goh at the airport. He also paid for a room in an inn for the mother and son, giving Ms Seow her first night in a proper bed in Hong Kong.
Australian airline Jetstar offered free flights for both of them to return to Singapore.
Many others, including the Singapore Association Hong Kong, have offered assistance should Ms Seow need it.
"We definitely did not expect this overwhelming response," said Mr Goh.
"People have been very kind, generous and sincere in helping me and my mum even though most of them have not met us."
"I'd like to say a big thank you to them and also to TNP," added Mr Goh.
"I'm really thankful and grateful that people have gone out of their way to help and make this reunion possible.
"The only way I can show my gratitude is to take good care of my mum and for us to move on to better times with all this support."
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Bringing a McRefugee home
Some people don’t trust journalists.
Mary Seow certainly felt that way at our first meeting.
She had been interviewed at random by the Associated Press (AP) and mentioned in the wire agency’s early November report on homeless people sleeping in Hong Kong’s 24-hour McDonald outlets — also known as McRefugees.
Mary later told me she hadn’t known what a wire agency such as AP was, and had not expected her story to reach people beyond Hong Kong, where she said she had been roaming the streets after being cheated of her money by church friends.
After the AP report was published, those few paragraphs on her being a homeless Singaporean in Hong Kong led to interest in Mary from other members of the press.
For Mary, the attention was thoroughly unwanted and she was very wary of anyone else asking questions.
I was sent to locate her, to find out what had happened to her. How does a middle-aged Singaporean become homeless in a foreign city?
I spent a Friday night in the same McDonald’s she slept in. But as no photo of her had been taken by AP, she was able to avoid detection.
I returned the following night, again with no luck.
A woman I suspected to be Mary sat in the same corner I had seen her in the previous night, but refused to talk.
On my third night, I had new information that came from Mary’s family in Singapore.
Mary was a single parent, and her only son, Edward, had filed a missing person’s report with the police more than four years ago. This came after Mary suddenly became uncontactable during a business trip to China.
Edward had feared the worst, even thinking that she had been kidnapped or murdered.
Edward’s granduncle, Mr Roland Seow, contacted me after reading the first TNP story on Mary, asking if I could help put her in touch with her family.
Roland sent me an old picture of Mary. It was confirmation. The resemblance with the woman sleeping in the corner was unmistakable.
Edward wanted to bring his mother back, but Mary had been avoiding him all these years.
Shame and guilt for losing money that she felt should have been his had built to the point that she felt it was best to stay missing.
He, on the other hand, wanted to start afresh. But neither of us had a way to contact her by phone, and Edward’s job did not give him the means to travel.
I worked with Edward and decided that seeing his face would be the best way to convince his mother to open up. And so I headed back to the same McDonald’s for the third night. Time was not on our side.
Mary had plans to leave for Macau. There was a chance she may have left already to avoid the spotlight.
Thankfully, she had delayed leaving for Macau by a day, and I managed to catch her, this time with her son’s image on my phone.
She was stunned that I’d spoken to the person she cared most about.
“Turn off your phone, I don’t want him to see me like this, let’s go somewhere else to talk,” she said gruffly.
But her demeanour softened once we were out on the curb outside the McDonald’s, where, her eyes welling, she asked me how Edward was.
I told her he was well, living alone in a rental room — Mary had sold their flat on ill advice from the same church friends — but getting by.
I doubt I will ever forget her next words: “You’ve answered my greatest prayers, that Edward is well.”
We spent the next few hours chatting — Mary felt she wasn’t ready to face her son, but Edward had other plans.
The stories I wrote on their family’s plight generated numerous offers of aid, and with the help of our readers, Edward was able to make a fully sponsored trip to Hong Kong to surprise his mother just a few days later.
It wasn’t easy creating an opportunity for them to meet quietly and have the alone time they needed to make important life decisions.
But when the surprise meeting finally took place, Mary’s shock and smiles said it all.
The very moment after she first saw Edward, Mary rolled up a piece of paper and pretended to hit him for giving her such a shock.
She soon turned to me and began hitting me as well, all in good humour.
Kind readers pitched in to make sure Mary had her first proper night’s sleep in Hong Kong before finally flying back to Singapore with Edward two days after.
Before she left, Mary told me: “I don’t treat you like a reporter anymore, I treat you like a friend. You are my friend.”
And this friend of hers is hoping she finds happiness together with her son.