Sibu Mural Arts

We always see the news and article of Penang, Ipoh mural arts. Now we have Sibu own version. I would recommend everyone go and check the arts(the wall painting). It is interesting by looking at these wall paintings, lot of story you can get from the life (food and culture) of Sibu. This also helps to promote tourism in Sibu.

Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) initiated a street art project in May this year, undertaken by the council’s Sibu Street Art Gallery Committee in preparation for ‘Visit Sibu Year 2017’.

Location: Alley besides Ah Hee Kopitiam, Butterfly Garden

This can be found near the famous Chop Hing Huong, 兴园茶室  Ding Bian Hu 鼎边糊. The painying showing how the owner cooks the delicious Ding Bian Hu.

Location: Back Lane of Market Road
There are few paintings (6 in total) that adorns the wall along the Back Lane of Market Road. It shows the famous and most liked local delight of people in Sibu.

Kampua - foochow dry noodles. Traditionally it is white in colour. You can order it with Soy Sauce(Black) or  Chili Sauce(Red) or Soy Sauce with chili Sauce.
Kompia - a type of foochow traditional bread cooked over hot burning charcoal.

Penyeram - a Malay sweet cake.

Kuih Jala - Melanau and Iban net cake.

This painting shows one of the favourite local Malayt snacks, the ‘Pulut Panggang’ that consists of glutinous rice soaked in coconut milk and steamed before it is rolled in banana leaves and then grilled. There are lot of variety of Pulut Panggang - Kosong(No filling, only glutinous rice), Daging(fill with beef), Ayam(fill with chicken), Ikan Bilis(fill with anchovies) etc.

Dian Bian Ngu - a thick soup made of cooked rice paste served with squib, meatballs, black mushroom and golden needles.

Location:  Khoo Peng Loong Road, near the Sibu Wharf

This painting of a Wharf Coolie adorns the wall outside the very old food court at Khoo Peng Loong Road.



Ayam Bungkus - chicken tied and wrapped up with newspaper and nylon string. I used to think that everywhere the chicken is wrapped like this but find that this is unique to Sibu.

Childhood - a painting of children playing traditional games in the central market - Level 1, near the eatery stall 124.

Location: Sarawak House

Iron Man painting at Sarawak House.

Location: Good Happiness Restaurant旺喜楼, Lorong Sena 5

One Piece Painting behind the Good Happiness Restaurant旺喜楼. This is so cute.

Location: Blacksmith Road

Green-and-white bus wall painting at Blacksmith Road - our traditional non-airconditioned bus.

Sibu Heritage Center

A place where you can get all sorts of information regards the history and culture of Sibu. It is like a musuem, worth a visit if you like to know more about Sibu. The Sibu Heritage Centre housed in the former Sibu Municipal Council building. There are 2 floors for this museum and shop that sell the iban souvenir(if still open). It tells you the early beginnings of Sibu, the coming of early Chinese migrants from the various dialect groups and also those of the earliest ethnic tribes. It shows also the various culture from Iban, Melanau, Chinese, Malay etc.

Address: Jalan Central, Sibu 96000, Malaysia
Website | Facebook

Sibu Foochow Accosiation

The Sibu Foochow Association was built on a piece of 1.3 acres of land situated along Jalan Salim. Its ground floor will be for commercial purposes, first and second floor will be for association office, conference room and library. Third Floor is a multi-purpose centre, Total build-up area is about 40,000 sq. ft. The design of the building is based on traditional chinese culture.

There is a World Fuzhou Heritage Gallery at Level 2 which worth for visiting. It explained the history of Foochow dialect.

Opening Hours:

Tuesday To Sunday 

8am -12 noon

1:30pm - 4:30pm

Monday Closed

Address:

Sibu Foochow Association诗巫福州公会
8-10, Central Road
P.O. Box 1697
96008 Sibu
Sarawak, Malaysia
Tel: 084-320445
Fax: 084-324427

Wong Nai Siong Garden 黄乃裳公园

This garden along Sungai Merah is build to memorize our ancestor, Wong Nai Siong who brought our great grandparent or grandparent from China to settle down in Sibu. Sungai Merah was the place where they alighted. Some background of Wong Nai Siong from Sibu Wiki.

Address: Along Jalan Sungai Antu, beside Sungai Merag MAP

In 1901 Wong Nai Siong (Huang Naishang) led the first batch of Foochow Christians from China to Sibu to open up the fertile lands of Sibu for cultivation, a massive opening up of Sibu. This was a landmark year in the history of the development of Sibu.

Wong Nai Siong came to Singapore in September 1899. From there, he proceeded to West Malaysia, Sumatra and the Dutch East Indies. For six months he explored the places but failed to find a suitable place for the immigration and settlement of his folks in China. In April 1900, Mr. Wong Nai Siong came to Sarawak and got the approval of the Sarawak Rajah to look for a suitable site for Chinese immigrants.

Wong explored the lower valley and upper reaches of the Rajang River. He soon discovered that the Rajang Delta was very fertile and particularly suitable for cultivation. So he decided to choose the area for opening up for cultivation. With that decision, Mr. Wong went to see the second Rajah of Sarawak, Rajah Charles Brooke, for discussions regarding the matter of opening up of land for cultivation. In those days of the Rajahs, Sarawak was sparsely populated with vast land yet to be developed, Wong's plan was timely and very much appreciated.

So, when Wong Nai Siong went to see Sir Charles Brooke and explained to him his plan to lead large groups of Foochows to open up Sibu for cultivation, the Rajah immediately agreed. Both parties signed an agreement.

The Chinese immigrants came in three batches. The first batch consisted of 72 people, the second batch 535, and the third batch 511, totalling 1118 people. Of the total, 130 brought their spouses and families, while the others were bachelors. After working in Sibu, nearly all the immigrants chose to settle down and made Sibu their new home. They were happy to settle down for a brighter future in Sibu.

There are 2 parts for this garden which separated by the road. This garden is not that fantastic as some of the items is not well maintained but it is still clean and nice to walk. However, I would still recommend you to stop by and check out this historical site. Local people sometime will jog here, the place is quiet and not much noise, you can feel the peace here.

Besides, you can walk around the surrounding, Sungai Merah area has lot of good food too. Some places you can find the food - Joystar Garden花悅枋, Jin Xuan Corner, Nest Station Egg Puff 巢阁鸡蛋仔, Choon Seng Coffee Shop.

Pingnan Egg Tea屏南蛋茶

Pingnan Egg Tea屏南蛋茶 is a traditional hospitality custom from China, Fujian Province Pingnan district, when the guests visit Pingnan people, they will prepare egg tea. This egg tea is good for healthy. You have to use boiled tea and mixed with egg, then add some sugar or rock sugar to flavour it.

You might be wondering I am introducing Sibu and not China. Majority Sibu Chinese is Foochow people and some of them still maintain the traditional culture. However, this type of egg tea culture is not that common in Sibu. I happened to attend the Pingnan Egg Tea ceremony and got to see how it was made.

福建屏南县的一种待客风俗，有客人来时会冲泡给客人喝。方法是用煮开的茶叶水，然后冲浇在搅拌均匀的蛋中，加冰糖（或白糖）而成。福建屏南县的甘棠乡巴地畲族自然村的村民以艾叶卧底，上搁一个完整的生蛋，用滚烫的山泉水浇熟，沏出“艾蛋茶”。每逢村中男人办大事、干重活，或身有小恙时必饮此茶——艾叶可祛痧解毒避邪气，蛋可进补，故奉蛋茶又成为迎宾待客的上等礼节。在屏南，谁家来客人，热情的主人就会泡碗蛋茶敬给客人;谁家办大事、干重活都会泡蛋茶接待，表示一种隆重，表示一种礼数。
**Chinese source taken from Baike Baidu and www.yyx.com.cn/畅游白水洋

The way that Pingnan society in Sibu did was, they use chopstick to help. Basically this is how they made the egg tea.

Ingredients:-

• 80g Tea Leave艾叶
• 5 cups Water水 
• 5 Egg蛋
• Sugar or rock sugar冰糖 (if you wish to be healthy, you may add honey蜂蜜) - Optional

**I am not sure the exact amount of ingredients needed. For the sugar amount, you can adjust yourself depends on the sweetness level you like. If you totally cannot take it sugar, you can just skip it.

Steps:-

1. Boiled the tea leaves and sugar in the water. According to them you can use most of the tea, they were using normal Chinese tea leaves. The tea must be really hot to make the egg tea.
2. Place one egg in the bowl. Take one chopstick and place straight onto the egg yolk like the picture below.
3. Pour the hot tea slowly down along the chopstick until the tea fill 75% of the bowl. You will then notice the egg started to get cooked.
4. Egg tea is done. You may serve it to your guest.

**Tips: The tea MUST BE HOT when you make the Egg Tea if not the egg will not have the nice shape and the raw egg smell will be very strong.

There are some other recipe of cooking the tea egg online but I can only found in Chinese Version.

【桑寄生蛋茶】
　　主 料： 桑寄生2两（约80克），鹌鹑蛋8只，红枣8-12粒，冰糖9/2两（约180克）。
　　做 法：
　　1、鹌鹑蛋隔水蒸15分钟，然后放入冷水中浸片刻，去壳备用。
　　2、桑寄生置筲箕内，用水洗净，沥干。
　　3、红枣洗净，去核。
　　4、清水5杯注入锅内烧煮，下桑寄生，用中火煮约20分钟。
　　5、捞出桑寄生，下红枣、鹌鹑蛋和冰糖，同煮10分钟便成。
　　备 注： 鹌鹑蛋壳较鸡蛋壳薄，而且表面花斑斑，即使有裂纹也不易觉察。假若将之放入水中浸煮，蛋白便会从裂缝中渗出，改用隔水蒸的方法，则可避免鹌鹑蛋直接受热，能保证熟蛋完好。

【蜂蜜蛋茶】
　　蜂蜜35克，鸡蛋1个。
　　[制作]蜂蜜加水适量烧丌；将鸡蛋磕入碗内，用筷子打散，再将烧沸的蜜水冲蛋服。
　　[用法]每日1—2次，温服

　　[功效] 宣肺润喉，除烦止咳 适用于慢性支气管炎、声音嘶哑等。

Introduce Sibu Cuisines

If you are asking what to eat in Sibu, I would say there is really a lot of  good food for you to try out. The MUST try cuisines are kampua, BianNyuk, Sarawak Laksa, Dian Man Hu, Kompia, Midin,  Big Head Prawn Noodles, Ka Lang, Foochow Red Wine Chicken etc

You can find the list of restaurant in Sibu HERE.

I happen to come across this video on Youtube by Sibu呷透透 and I feel it will be nice I added to my page. This video summarized most of the traditional or local delights, although the coffee shop that introduced here might not be the famous. How we choose which coffee shop has the best one? That is all based on individual preference.

Gawai Dayak

Gawai Dayak is a festival celebrated by Iban Dayaks in Sarawak and West Kalimantan which is officially public holidays on 1 and 2 June every year in Sarawak, Malaysia. It is both a religious and social occasion. It is a thanksgiving day marking a bountiful harvest and a time to plan for the new farming season or other endeavors ahead.

I do not have any picture on this festival, but if you Google search the Gawai, you will find a lot of pictures like below. From there you can have more understand on how our Iban people celebrate their festival.

Pictures source from Google

Deepavali

Deepavali or Diwali popularly known as the "festival of lights," is a five-day Hindu festival which starts on Dhanteras, celebrated on the thirteenth lunar day of Krishna paksha (dark fortnight) of the Hindu calendar month Ashwin and ends on Bhaubeej.

Malaysia does celebrate Deepavali as we have 3 races and Indian is the 3rd largest race in Malaysia. It is public holiday throughout the country except Sarawak. Although not a public holiday in Sarawak, Hindu in Sarawak does celebrate the big festival at their own.

Pictures source from Google

Some reading to understand how Sarawak Hindu celebrate their big festival.
http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/11/13/declare-deepavali-a-state-holiday-indian-leaders/

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year(CNY), an important event for Chinese. Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally ran from Chinese New Year's Eve, the last day of the last month of the Chinese calendar, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month, making the festival the longest in the Chinese calendar. So originally it should be a 15 days event, but for the modern day now, it is impossible the company shut down for 15 days. For Malaysia and Singapore, it will be 2 days public holiday. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the "Lunar New Year".

Eve of Chinese New Year(除夕夜), in Sibu, we normally gather as whole family with the oldest as the central. Traditionally each family will cook some dishes and bring together to the grandparent's place(if not stay together) then we will have the CNY Eve Dinner(年夜饭). Dishes every year almost the same, we will have fish, chicken, duck, fried Foochow noodles, dumplings, mixed vegetables, etc

2010 CNY Eve Dinner

2012 CNY Eve Dinner

On the day of the 1st day of the CNY, my home tradition will have Foochow Redwine Chicken Noodles for breakfast. It is depends on each family, some may not follow traditional and mostly for Buddhist families, they will have vegetarian for breakfast.

During the CNY period, homemade cookies and cakes always the best to serve our guest. My mum always prepared a lot of the cookies.

Big Head Prawn Noodle

Big Head Prawn Noodle is very common in Sibu but the price is higher than normal fried noodles. The cheapest I know now cost RM18 and I am not sure how big is the prawn. The most expensive one I heard is around RM30. The price difference might be due to the size of the prawn.

I went to the wet market and checked the price as my friend said Sibu has cheaper price. The smallest big head prawn is RM45, medium RM55, Large RM58 and giant RM60 per kg. (Update as at Aug 2013) The price of the prawn will change time to time and normally it will be more expensive during any festival event like Chinese New Year or Hari Raya.

Pictures below show the size of the large prawn. This costed RM58 per kg.

This is the home-cooked Big Head Prawn Noodle, the one you see at restaurant almost the same as below but of course not as much prawn as home-cooked. Here we put 2 big prawns, the cost already RM14(assume we have 9 prawns per kg). That is the reason why the Big Head Prawn Noodle is so expensive if you eat in the restaurant.