Grilled cuttlefish hawker at Kai Joo Street in Kuching by Leonard Siaw.
I came to Kuching looking for food adventures (which we found plenty 😁🙏 ), and I also discovered Kuching's amazing street art.
On landing at Kuching International Airport, our Kuching buddy Chai brought us straightaway to Jalan Padugan for food 🤭
Walking along historic Jalan Padugan, this colourful mural at alleyway Lorong 16, caught my eye. It's an old lady making ang ku kueh or red tortoise cake.
It's the work of Kuching artist Leonard Siaw Quan Cheng 萧艺. The lady is madam Goh Bing Choo who is a well known traditional kueh maker in Kuching.
Ang ku kueh is a glutinous rice cake traditionally filled with mung bean or red bean paste. The shape of ang ku kueh represents the tortoise, an auspicious animal in Chinese culture, especially among Hokkien people. Ang Ku Kueh is a staple snack and yet has many customary uses in rituals such as birthdays, celebrations, and offerings to deities.
To make sure his mural correctly represents Mdm Goh, who she is and what she stood for, Leonard 萧艺 spent many hours getting to know her personally and her craft.
For audiences of his mural, Leonard also explains in detail the rationale behind his portrayal of Mdm Goh, Kuching's ang ku kueh maker.
Buddy Chai next brought us to the historic India Street.
Entitled "The Early Mercers", this huge mural stood at the entrance of India Street. It is Leonard's portrayal of pioneer fabric traders at this historic street. On the left is Wee Aik Oh and on the right is Sayed Ahmad. Their respective descendants still run fabric shops at India Street.
Leonard's style is to portray real life personages whom he personally interviews to ensure authentic insights which he respectfully paints into his mural. I respect his sincerity, integrity and relentless efforts to ensure accuracy.
Street mural art is a fairly recent phenomenon in Kuching, Sarawak. One of the earliest works was the orang utan mural by well known Lithuanian-born artist Ernest Zacharevic at Jalan Power. Started around 2014 i.e. merely 10 years ago but within this short span, Kuching is already well known in the mural art world.
At Jalan Bishopsgate looking for food but stayed for the eye popping mural art 🤭
Land of Hornbills and sea turtles at Jalan Bishopsgate.
Traders selling harvested bird nests at Jalan Carpenter.
Ah Mah (grandma) and tinsmith at Lorong Kai Joo.
The coolies of Kuching at Lebuh China. (Ignore the narration. I was talking to myself 😅 )
Not sure what the coolies were eating.
Our six day driving trip in Kuching was only an appetiser, whetting our appetites for more fascinating things which we did not expect in Kuching.
I am so in love with Kuching's wonderful murals. There are so many more I need to record and document, and hope I have a chance to do that in the future. It will be a dream come true if I can have a chance to personally meet Kuching's gifted mural artists too.
It is worth a trip to Kuching just for its world class mural art alone, and then taste its unique cuisine, plus there are so many other amazing things to do and see in Kuching and Sarawak.
Looking at this mural, I can almost smell the familiar fragrance of sotong kering bakar. Childhood memories of ah gong grilling dried sotong over a stove flame. Once I saw him panggang one over a candle frame. Sneaked up beside him & watched quietly. He then wordlessly gave me a bit to chew on. 😂 Years later when I mentioned this incident to him, he grumbled good naturedly that he wasn't expecting anyone to notice & that piece he had panggang wasn't enough to share but begrudgingly gave me a bit as he couldn't let me watch him snack on it alone. 🤣
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