You don’t have to visit museums or art galleries in order to get a feel for the local culture. Sometimes all it takes is a trip to the market to find a true representation of the people and their lifestyles. An afternoon stroll through a pasar (market) in rustic Kota Bahru was a prime example of this, as I found out.
Onward, to the pictorial tour!
The above picture taken at the pasar, for instance, is classically Malaysian. On the left are salted fish that have been dried under the heat of the sun, making it a great ingredient in most Malaysian cuisines. In the background are ikan bilis, a.k.a. dried anchovies. Delicious when fried and salted, they can be eaten crunchily on their own or with spicy fish paste and rice.
To the right is a pile of durian, the proclaimed “king of fruits.” Many Asians are wild about this huge, spiky fruit with yellow, creamy flesh. During durian season, you can see fruit stands all along the road, even at highway rest-stops, with people crouching on the ground and enjoying several opened pieces of durian.
The joke is, of course, that durian is infamous for turning Westerners off. Most Westerners are so repelled by the smell that some high-end hotels prohibit taking the fruit into their elevators!
Malaysia has all-coastal states, so seafood is popular and available year-round — well, perhaps not as much during monsoon season, but there certainly isn’t a lack.
Of course, there are no laws prohibiting animals roaming these markets, so it was no surprise to find a goat grazing in the back, or a cat pretending not to eye the mounds of fish surrounding it!
There is also an abundance of fruits in Malaysia. Some are seasonal, like durian, ciku, and mangosteen (the latter delicious but infamous for staining shirts purple). Others are available year-round, such as bananas, papayas, and guava, also known as jambu.
There are two kinds of jambu. There is the more well-known kind, jambu batu (literally, “stone guava”), which is round, has green skin and white insides, and has a hard, crunchy texture. The other kind is the subtle jambu air (“water guava”), which is pink and bell-shaped. Lighter and crisper than its counterpart, you can immediately tell how each kind earned their names the minute you bite into them.
Market-folk know that people browsing their stalls get hungry, so it’s no surprise to find stands selling iced drinks, vade, or satay to cater to their needs. Satay is a popular Malaysian delicacy, although “delicacy” might not be the right word for it since it implies a kind of luxurious indulgence, when in fact it’s simple and accessible to all. Marinated chicken skewered and grilled over charcoal, it is served with peanut sauce and occasionally with rice cubes. Whether as a meal or as a snack, there’s no saying nay to satay.
Nor can one resist the people behind the stalls. I love them. There’s a kind of friendliness and kinship that goes on, even if you’ve never met any of them before and never will again. When I took the above picture, the woman asked me to cuci (wash) her a copy. I regretfully told her that it was a digital camera that didn’t use traditional film, but then a lightbulb went off in my head, and I showed her the picture using my camera’s preview screen.
She took a look at herself, then sprang back, blushing. “Eh, comel!“ she laughed (“I look cute!”).
I grinned. Yes, she sure did.
| « Scaling Stromboli, by Emily Ding | Moving to Canada: Prelude » |
|