ORIGIN GRAINS: Two farmers from Bawang Assan selling pure kampung rice.
SHARING: This oblidging and well-read herbalist is keen to share information.
MEATY OFFER: A woman selling meat of a wild boar shot in her friend’s farm.
MONEY’S WORTH: You can get fresh fish at the Sunday Market .
SEVERAL years ago, people in Sibu began to speak in a rather amusing way.
“We go to the Sunday Market but the best is on Saturday morning!”
That’s rather confusing isn’t it? But it’s the truth — the whole truth.
At the end of Huo Ping Road in Sibu is a fairly large empty space. Local farmers from surrounding farms set up their umbrellas and small tables to sell their produce.
As time passed by, more and more famers decided it was a good way of earning a small income and they needn’t have to sell to middlemen.
From the outset, this market has been given the blessings by the Sibu Municipal Council which handles petty traders and small businesses. By collecting a small fee, the SMC allows petty trading.
This reminds many that in the old days, the Brooke government even set up a market or meeting place for Penans to trade with the other ethnic groups.
The Brookes were protective of the Penans whom they felt had to be given a helping hand when trading with the other more advanced indigenous communities.
Different protection
Today, the protection is slightly different. When petty traders pay their dues to the SMC, they are assured of their trading places while the council will clean up after the market day.
According to Mr Ling, who owns a shop in the area, the SMC collects RM1 from sellers of dry stuff like flowers and fruits, and RM4 from those “leaving behind washing water, fish scales and chicken waste.”
The stalls are arranged alongside Huo Ping Road and nowadays the farmer-hawkers have grown in numbers to line several of the roads in the Mahsuri area.
A flower grower-seller is happy she gets a shaded part along a backlane next to Huo Ping Road.
The morning sun does not penetrate this backlane because a block of building faces the main road. Here, in her very cool and shady space, she displays her orchids and green plants very attractively.
This lady is a different kind of salesperson because she is very passionate about her plants, spending time to explain her orchids and plants to enthusiasts. It does not really matter if people do not buy from her, according to friend.
What is really interesting is that a few women would stop by her stall, admire her plants and gain a lot of information about growing flowers and plants from her.
Next to her is another woman who sells live ducks and chicken. Opposite this stall is a woman who sells herbal plants and a special crab sauce at RM20 a bottle. Both readily chat with customers.
In the spirit of neighbourliness, two Iban women rice sellers from Bawang Assan also feel welcomed, sitting at a friend’s five footway in one small corner at the end of the market. Although they don’t pay rental, the towkay does not chase them away.
The Iban women come with a van and sell only a few gantang of rice they plant themselves.
Saturday is, in fact, the best time for people looking for fresh farm produce.
Popular sky fruit
Nowadays, many people have opened businesses in the area like selling China-imported clothes, toys and herbs.
A businessman Mr Yung has done research on herbal cures. A young woman asks him about the herbs he is selling and the well-read Mr Yung has a lot of printed materials to give out.
One of the most popular items he is selling is sky fruit. Many people have been asking him to sell more. The advertisements in newspapers and Google have also improved his sales.
He is happy to note some buyers even come with computer printouts to compare his products with what they have read about.
A retired teacher buys a bulb to show Mr Yung, asking him where to get more of this bulb which is a red onion grown in abundance by the natives.
A soup made from this bulb can be very healthful.This certainly makes the teacher’s day — or rather weekend!
The Sibu Sunday Market — also known as the Pedada Sunday Market — is about five minutes’ drive from Sibu Town Centre.
Although many people say it looks like the old Kuching Satok Market, it is actually rather small by comparison. However, who knows, one day, this market will become as large as the old (now relocated) Satok Market.
Dialectical quirks
Amidst all the buying and selling, an interesting feature can be seen or rather heard. If you are interested in learning dialects, you might pick up a thing or two here.
A scholar who comes here to study the local lingo remarks these farmers have a very interesting way of speaking Foochow.
Some of the words they use are archaic and as a friend notes, “this is fossilised Foochow dialect, untainted by modern trends — unpolluted by injection of other dialects.”
Here is an example of how spoken Foochow has deviated from mainstream Foochow.
A Sibu Foochow man was once retained at a police station for a day for questioning in Fuzhou city (China).
On his return to his relatives’ house, he was asked many questions about his whereabouts. He answered mata tahan pasipot (police took my passport).
All these words were spoken in Sibu Foochow — which a Foochow of Fuzhou City could not understand at all.
This is what we call Malay-Foochow. The whole family roared with laughter! Anyway, all’s well that ends well.
Famous Peace Road
Huo Ping Road, where the Sunday Market is situated at the end of it, is a rather famous Sibu road. Huo Ping means peace in Foochow.
Probably at first, the intention of the city fathers was to only have the market on Sunday for the farmers from the surrounding villages.
There is already a Central Market, a Wet Market and Tiong Hua Road Market. But the open “Sunday Market” along Huo Ping Road is for small-timers willing to pay a RM1 daily licence to operate.
If they don’t turn up, they don’t pay. Those who sell ducks, chicken and fish have to pay more — RM4.
Most of the hawkers are actually Foochow by dialect. A few are Mandarin-speaking but they not willing to say which is their real dialect. They are rather busy selling their fancy women’s underwear. And it’s fascinating to watch the bargaining between sellers and buyers.
Some are Hokkien or Min Nang people. They sell their fish and vegetables.
Well, maybe Sibu is the only place in the world where you can say you are going to the Sunday Market on Saturday morning.
It’s a really good Saturday morning where one absorbs the struggles and achievements of the farmers and the diligence of the women stall holders.