Shopping at The Little Penang Market, in conjunction of Penang UNESCO world Heritage Site.

The Little Penang Market

Planning for a great weekend getaway due to the all rehearsals, and freakin’ tiring reading week, I decided to head off to the last of the three day celebration at Upper Penang road where previously we had the French Music Festival like two years ago. So due to my "independence", I had to drag along some to keep me company since I had never took the bus alone before. Good thing there was Jie Ru to accompany me there.

Yesterday, I heard that she will be coming back to Penang to work so I dragged her down to the concert that night. I’ve told her about the morning celebrations and then she was interested to watch the Hokkien puppet theater somewhere. Half way through the performance she realized that she couldn’t understand much so she ended up at the t-shirt printing site also by the Anak-anak Kota and made herself a t-shirt with a red lantern with Chinese characters that wrote Penang. It was a good thing that she met a church friend Maria (which is currently working with Janet’s project on cultural mapping) and they managed to get to church before the performance that night. Well according to her, that if she didn’t make it on time she couldn’t make it to the market the next day. Thank god for that. I was desperate to go to the events since due to loads of time consumed on practices we couldn’t make even a single event before the show that night.

So about nine plus I crawled out from my tortoise shell and walked down my block to the Sungai Dua USM gate where I met Jie Ru. We asked the bus driver whether the bus would stop at Upper Penang Road but he said that it’s only a short distance walk from KOMTAR so we took the bus to KOMTAR then. There is where I saw the newly made t-shirt that she made yesterday. I wished that I could make the t-shirt too.*sigh*

So, since both our bearings are cannot be trusted so we kinda made a decision to go green and take a trishaw to Upper Penang Road. Bus fare from Sungai Dua RM1 per head. Trishaw fare: KOMTAR to Upper Penang Road RM10. So RM 5 each. Soooooo expensive!!! But we know that it was meant for tourist but we decided to give it a go anyway because it was Jie Ru’s first encounter on a trishaw. So off we went to the so what Nadia called “Pasar Kutu” or flea market there.

Trishaw experience... quite airy

The view from the trishaw

Upon arriving at The Little Penang Street market we heard music coming from the side of the road, the stalls were all put up and that few of the stalls were selling antiques. In the middle were foods. All the ang moh people bought ketupats which I do not wish to try now since it will be Ramadhan soon and there will be tons of ketupat being fed to me on eid day. So there were interestingly a lot of the Anak-anak Kota people, the dancers, Yoke Pin, I even saw Marie Helen our French teacher at the Alliance Française. Not so long there was Janet and Prof. Tan. We were talking about my project which was music and trance healing because there was a Kuda Kepang performance and they were in trance and the bomoh or shaman was trying to bring them out of the trances. It was interesting though, well, as Main Puteri also could be acted out, as so for this performance. It’s a matter of what you think, as I was telling Prof Tan.

Kuda Kepang Performance from Johor

Strolling along the stalls we manage to look at a lot of Nyonya crafts like bead work(Some could reach RM 400), kebayas, (RM600 per piece, I cannot afford to buy… huhu), preserved fruits or Nyonya acar limau and lots more. There was also a Nyonya heritage exhibition going on in one of the shops showing what its like to be a nyonya in Penang. (Actually, honestly, I thougt there were only Nyonya’s in Melacca. I didn’t know there’s a number of population in Penang as well) since I didn’t have the money, those gorgeous art work needed to take a rain check. I’ll surely come back once I’m rich.

Nyonya doing inventory of items....Making sure that there aren't been mysteriously disappearing

The acar limau or preserved lime fruits. It yellow, Ialways taste the red ones. Wonder what does it taste like

The beads for your shoes, you buy them, then you get your cobblar to fix it on for you. They are so lovely.

Nyonya beading at work, even the Nyonya themselves are very lovely.

The already fixed bead work

Nyonya greeting with a basket.

The sia, where you place your food

This is an Ang Ku mould. Looks like a tortoise shell

The lovely Nyonya's dancing

So besides antiques, Nyonya items, there were also charity items for sale like some weaving products by mentally challenged people, some quilt also for charity and many more. Both of us even got a chance to weave. That was fun. I almost had right and left wrong coordination, but good for a first timer though.

The teacher

Pupil one, did very well. Didn't have too much coordination problem.

Pupil two, can't remember which one's the right or left leg. Did pass though once you get the hang of it.

Ladies who did a good job making the quilt. So please, If you could donate ,help these people help others make a difference.

The others that were interesting were a retired teacher selling his wood work. Among what I admire is the durian opener. It’s made of good quality if not mistaken local Meranti wood. According to him, it’s the best selling item. I wanted to buy one but my parents rarely buy durian (actually they don’t. I will go buy eat alone and go back). So I said whenever I need one I know where to find one.

Others are books, paintings; there was a charity selling soap for women who are challenged and t-shirs which are one of a kind. That company was selling the UNESCO t-shirts for RM15 so I bought for me and my dad. It was like sketches of old Penang, and so after a tired long day, we went outside of the happening area and went to get cheaper near the mamak stall nearby. This is to prevent from over spending, which we didn’t do actually.

Clay or dough art

These are really cute

And these too. Mini wooden clogs

This is a form of printing though I do not know much about it.

Grasshoppers, which don't hop, they are moved by a stick

Around 2.50, we went to the Chong Fatt-Tze Mansion, it was a long but not so interesting tour. We didn’t get to see most of the house but according to my dearie roommate that there is a film by a Singaporean production called the Funeral Party and my roommate knows the people in the production. So I intend to explore more of the house soon. I hope, and meet the cast of course!!

We went for a final round at the market and decided to head home. By the way, at the middle of the market was an open air space where there are dances like the last night Dondang Sayang ladies, Kuda Kepang, Nyonya fan and handkerchief dance and also Indian Karnatak dances were performed during the whole thingy. We asked Maria who was “working” there on how to get back to USM.

The Fan Dance

The Karnatik Dancers. I admire their precise rhythm that they have because, if they make a mistake, their anklet bells would sound awful. They did a very good job.

We wanted to head back to KOMTAR so I could take the bus straight to my residential complex so we waited for the bus along the road. After few attempts, we decided to walk to and see whether we could take the bus some where else. In the mean time, its the time so see the old penang sites.

So we walked, and walked, and walked, enjoying the nice beautiful Penang city and before we knew it we reached KOMTAR. It was like a 20 minute walk and the whether was not so bad so you couldn’t feel the heat. When we reached the bus station we realized that we should have walked to upper Penang Road instead of taking the trishaw. Felt like we got cheated but it was the first time so no biggie. We then took separate busses back and headed home. It was a nice time to just enjoy the show for once the occasion was going on we couldn’t make to any of it but I hope occasions like this come around in the future so more and more of us will understand the importance of our heritage and take a step forward in preserving them for our future generation.