Re-exploration at a familiar place?

Photo taken on Saturday . 30 Sep 2023 . 6:24pm

Walk along the riverside,

The water is still yellowish,

The sky is still blueish,

The sunset is glowing reddish.

Let time freeze at this moment.

Nowadays, we can easily access everywhere around the world. The younger generation likes to travel or work in places other than their native hometown. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side. Although I have returned and stayed in my born-and-bred hometown for years, to be honest, I have not explored the city thoroughly. This time, I’m going to explore my native city – Sibu, a small town in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Firstly, I surfed the web looking for what is attractive regarding my own hometown, as if I were fresh to the town. Surprisingly, one of them is street art. It’s a kind of art painted on walls, mostly on abandoned buildings. The art, like magic, makes the old building vivid and alive again.

I remember the first time I learned of street art was during my university time in Georgetown, Penang – a historical and heritage city in Malaysia. The first and famous one, of course, is the “Children on bicycle”. The simple and naïve smile just melts everyone’s heart. This is what childhood should be like! I was attracted by the fine art work painted by Earnest Zacharevic, a young Lithuanian.

However, today I’m not discussing Penang Street Art. I’ll talk about my own hometown – Sibu Street Art. Sibu Street Art began in 2016, comprises of 10 murals, at the beginning, in different locations throughout Sibu to commemorate the story of Sibu’s culture, heritage and lifestyle. I spent one day walking around and finding these murals, like a tourist.

The first mural is called a “Wharf Laborer” or “Coolie” (in mandarin). It reflects the early days of Sibu of the 1950s to 1960s whereby “coolies” were a common sight at the wharf, carrying and loading goods to and from express boats. The river is the main transportation in Sarawak at that time, even until today. A lot of abdominal muscles men were there. Hahaha… I’ve seen this scene in the drama, I never thought this sort of scene happened in the early days of Sibu as well. How tough our ancestor’s life was!

The second mural shows well-known local cuisines. Of course, there are lots of culinary delights that have come to Sibu nowadays, however, the authentic delicacies for food hunting in Sibu are these, with the most famous one – “kampua noodles” and “kompia”. These two are my favorite food for breakfast and also my sweetest moments with my dad. But, to my surprise, another famous delight – “laksa” wasn’t on the mural list. Is it difficult to draw? Truly and sincerely said, honest from the bottom of my heart, the drawing of "pulut panggang" shows the high degree of similarity.

There is another distinct introduction for one of the local cuisines shown above. “Scenery of Dian Mian Hu stall” mural features a significant stall operator who has spent more than 60 years’ operating a Dian Mian Hu stall. The cuisine originally migrates by the Fuzhou settlers from China. I only tried this cuisine after I grew up. It is a savoury soup with soft rice cake, like a cross between “ban mee” and porridge, mildly bland, add on fish ball and cuttlefish and enhanced with local ingredient – Sarawakian white pepper.

When I was a kid, I thought this delight was for old people because they seldom have strong teeth and you don't have to chew. Sometimes, nowadays, I’ll visit this stall and try this delight. (Gentle reminder – I have strong teeth.) The taste of this cuisine by this operator, who is now aged over 70 years old, just couldn’t be replicated. The mural was just exactly the actual restoration of him and his stall.

The next one is the “Wrapped chicken and duck”. This mural features a unique selling technique by Sibu hawkers, which is wrapping live chickens or ducks in tubes of newspapers, then tying them with nylon strings to form a sort of “handle” by leaving the animals’ head and legs poking out at both ends. I have seen this wrapped style since I was young. I thought this is common practice. But, only until now, due to social media, when tik toker and youtuber are promoting this, I realized that this is only visible and practiced in Sibu. What a clever act!

The mural has empty speech bubbles, as though the chickens and ducks are chit-chatting among themselves with unknown language. Whenever I pass by the hawker stall, these chickens and ducks are always noisy. Are they trying to say “Please help me” or discussing among themselves: “You’re going to be purchased and slaughtered first”? I, purposely, walked into the market, to see the real wrapped animals. It's true - they're really "noisy". Hahaha...

The next mural is a heart-warming one. It’s called “Childhood Memories”. It illustrates a typical Sibu childhood life during the 1980s. The two kids were eating ice sticks and there are drawings of a paper plane, paper dragonfly, tic-tac-toe, a dinosaur and a robot. Anything could have happened just for the kids to kill the leisure time. This mural has the similar concept with the “Children on Bicycle”, both showed the naïve feel. I feel how lucky those kids are, with no smart phones, no internet, they can can be “creative” enough to think of any activities to pass the time. I personally believe – their parents were really distressed because of the naughtiness of their children at that time. The moments were precious and irreplaceable.

The next one is the “Old Bus” mural. It symbolizes a huge part of the lifestyle of the Sibu community in the 60s and 70s, when the buses served as the town’s main public transport. The bus later changed to a longer length, due to the capacity to carry more passengers. I remember, when I was a kid, my mom always took me on the bus. It was a sweet and bitter memory as we needed to chase the bus sometimes, if we missed it. We had to wait for another half to one hour for the next bus schedule.

The next one illustrates a queue consisting of people from all walks of life, waiting patiently for a bus. What a good display of discipline by Sibu citizens!! All have their purpose, moving from one location to another, what brought them together is the bus stop. The elements of a multi-racial society where people of different backgrounds and ethnicities meet and interact at a bus stop, was perfectly displayed in this mural. We can rarely see this scene nowadays. As the living standard has become better and better, the majority can afford to buy cars. They can’t experience the anxious and rushed feeling of the bus, and also the harmonious feel there.

Next is “Batik” mural. Batik is one of the oldest forms of craft in the world. The designs are first drawn upon a cloth and then turns a plain fabric into a vibrant and unique one using a wax-resistant dyeing technique. The most popular kind of design are leaves and flowers. And, it is often seen in official events. It's a skilled art work to make a good batik drawing and coloring. When I was in school times, one of the art homework was to do a batik using a small plain fabric. It is still fresh in my memory – How ugly my batik fabric was!! However, I still managed to pass the homework, at least I’d completed it.

“Teh Tarik” is a famous traditional drink in Malaysia. It’s similar to the modern milk tea drink. “Teh” means "tea" and “tarik” mean “pull”. The more you pull, the tastier the tea is. Besides, it’s also displaying the skill of the tea maker. It's well-known as “kung fu tea”.

From my understanding, the mural describes the development of Sibu town. The swan is the symbol of Sibu. It symbolizes the peace and prosperity of the city. Then, I noticed the tallest building in Sarawak, Wisma Sanyan. Every year, there is a parachute jump competition held here. I noticed a crocodile drawing on the mural. Yep, Rajang River is a habitat of crocodiles. Also, the hibiscus flower – the national flower of Malaysia; the rhinoceros hornbill – the national bird of the state of Sarawak. There are lots of flora and fauna shown in this mural, like squid, fish, rafflesia, turtles etc. I saw the modern social media symbols too, like facebook, wechat, twitter etc.

This mural tries to express the development and landmark of Sibu over the years. I was standing in front of this mural for a long time, thinking about the meaning of this mural, and also searching the elements inside it, like a treasure hunt. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to witness the development of my hometown – how it has transformed from a village to town and aiming to achieve city status in the near future. This is the hard work of our ancestors and we shall be grateful because we're the beneficiaries!

Poh Guan mural – Chinese Medical Centre. This mural expresses the importance of Chinese medical centres in the old times in Sibu. The Chinese settlers in Sibu originally migrated from China. I think, there was a lack of western medicine in the old days. So, the Chinese relied much on the traditional Chinese medical treatments, like in China. Just around the corner, it's the physical medical centre. I guess it's the first chinese medical centre in Sibu.

In recent years, street art has been making a huge statement in many places around the world. It has been used to convey messages or awareness, either political or social or environmental issues, that give rise to discussion or reaction on critical topics. It is a way to tell a story through painting, as well as beautifying the city. As the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. Stunning street art is a powerful tool to promote tourism too. The tourists are able to understand the history of a place. I believe, with active promotion of street art as one of the town's tourist attractions, words of street murals could travel around the world.

After a day trip in the town, I feel, somehow familiar, somehow newly discovered, place to me. Memories came flooding back. Changes have occurred over the years to the town but I could still feel the familiarity, back to my childhood times. Same place but different and deeper feeling and understanding to the town. Time flies, I’ve grown up. (= I’m getting older -o-)

My feeling on this day trip in the town was:

The trip was worthy

A new angle about my hometown!

But,

The weather was hot

I was sweating a lot

The soles of my feet were in pain

I was exhausted!

And,

My stomach was rumbling

The night market is near

All types of food aroma came to me

The pungent smell of durian is at the street corner.

So,

Quickly I ended my exploration!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~