Wrapped Chicken as the 3rd Official Mural @ Sibu Central Market

Until this moment of writing, the town of Swan, Sibu has totally 3 official murals by the local council. The very 1st mural is a painting about wharf labourer at Jalan Khoo Peng Long and the 2nd one is a series of local delicacies of different ethnics located at Jalan Market.

The 3rd one is a mural located at the venue sort of "in between" the previous 2 murals and at one of the most lively and happening spot of Sibu town - Sibu Central Market @ Jalan Channel. It is about a very unique "scenery" that one can experience when visiting to one of the largest centralized market in the country which is the wrapped chickens and ducks.

This is how the hawkers here selling live chickens or ducks, by wrapping them in tube form using newspapers, then tied with nylon string to form sort of "handle" by leaving the birds' heads protruding at one end before putting them on shelves for selling.

Wrapping the birds in this way have few advantages:

1. the buyers can easily carry it away (time saving) just like carrying a handbag (that's why some people said it is a chicken "handbag")
2. sellers can display the birds on rack to let buyers to see, choose and feel the birds before buying them (harder to choose if put inside the cage)
3. can prevent droppings from messed up the floor, the road and the cloth
4. the birds are calm and more comfortable at such position (imagine if put the birds in plastic bag, they may suffocated)

To be honest, as a Siburian who grown up in this town, I never aware of the uniqueness of such method of wrapping the live chickens until I saw some reports/articles/blog posts highlight about this scenario. For me it is something that I used to see since I was a kid and it is just a norm but obviously it is not the same case in the eyes of the outsiders or foreign visitors.

This explained why the 3rd mural of SMC is about this wrapped chickens/ducks and located at the Central Market's building. It's because of its uniqueness in the eyes of tourists and became one of the "selling point" for visiting this large centralized market.

The painting is at the wall facing Jalan Bengkel, just opposite local corporate Pansar's office building. It consists of a long bench, with few wrapped chickens on and under the bench on the left and a wrapped duck on the right. Apart from these, there are 2 empty speech bubbles, one pointing to one of the chicken and another pointing to the empty bench area.

So, you can use your creativity and imagination how and what to pose with the painting to make it more "meaningful". However, I personally feel that it is not a good spot for the mural for following reasons:

1. The space in front of the mural always occupied and parked with motorcycles, thus the view always get blocked.
2. Some people used to take a rest at that area after shopping at central market while waiting for transport (especially during weekend), thus block the view and visitors may not be able to take photo with the mural.