Fish markets tend to be lively, bustling places. Buyers move quickly between stalls, sellers speak up to draw attention to their catch, and there's often a rush to grab the freshest fish before it's gone.
Kuala Muda, Malaysia, is a different story.
Instead of bargaining out loud, buyers approach the fishermen quietly and murmur their offers directly into their ear.
This tradition has earned the market its name, Pasar Bisik, or the 'Whispering Market.' Located along the Muda River between Kedah and Penang, this practice has persisted for generations
How the Whispering Market Works
First, fishermen bring their catch to shore, where buyers wait to inspect it. The buyers then approach the fishermen one at a time and quietly tell them how much they are willing to pay.
Nobody else is supposed to hear the offer.
Once the fisherman has heard the bids, he chooses which buyer gets the fish.
There is no auctioneer yelling numbers across the market. The fisherman is effectively the person running the auction, with every buyer’s offer kept between the two of them.
The market handles a variety of seafood, including fish, prawns, squid and crabs.
The whispering fish market spans two villages separated by the Muda River: Kota Kuala Muda in Kedah and Kampung Kuala Muda in Penang.
It Started With Secret Deals
A 2026 study published in Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Ethnic Domination and Subaltern Resistance: Rituals and Games of Calculative Transparency and Secrecy in Malaysia’s Whispering Fish Market, traces the origins of the whispering market to curi jual, or secret selling, in the 1950s.
The practice involved Malay fishermen secretly selling part of their catch to third party buyers through whispered negotiations, bypassing the Chinese taukeys who controlled the traditional bertaukey system.
It was useful for fishermen who needed financing, but it also meant that merchants had considerable influence over the price fishermen received for their catch.
Some fishermen began secretly selling part of their catch to other buyers instead. The negotiations had to stay quiet, which is where the whispering came in.
What began as a way to make private deals eventually became something much more organized. The secret negotiation itself became the basis of the auction system at Pasar Bisik.
Why Keep the Bids Secret?
If everyone can hear what one buyer is offering, another buyer can simply raise the price. That can turn into a very public bidding war.
At Pasar Bisik, buyers don’t know what their competitors are offering. Each person has to decide for themselves how much the fish is worth and make their own offer.
The fisherman hears all of those numbers and gets to choose.
According to the 2026 study, the secrecy of Pasar Bisik gave fishermen more bargaining power. Instead of being tied to a single traditional middleman, they could receive bids from different buyers and sell their catch to the highest bidder.
So the whisper isn’t just a quirky tradition. It is part of how the market works.
COVID-19 Made Whispering Surprisingly Difficult
Then came COVID-19.
A system that depends on two people standing close enough to whisper into each other’s ears doesn’t exactly fit with social distancing.
During Malaysia’s pandemic restrictions, Pasar Bisik had to change how transactions were conducted. In March 2020, Bernama reported that only registered fish traders were allowed to buy directly from fishermen, while buyers and fishermen had to maintain a one meter distance.
By April, the traditional practice had changed further, instead of whispering prices directly into fishermen’s ears, fishermen called out their prices from a distance, while buyers queued and entered the market one at a time.
Eventually, the whispers came back.
MalaysiaAktif reported in May 2026 that the market was still operating, with fishermen bringing in fresh catches and buyers continuing to use the traditional bidding method.
A Very Malaysian Way of Selling Fish
The system grew out of the way fishermen and traders interacted decades ago, and the whispering became a practical way to keep competing bids private.
Today, the tradition has become part of Kuala Muda’s identity. Visitors come to see it, but for the fishermen and buyers, it is still a working fish market.
So the next time you picture a fish auction, don’t imagine people screaming prices at each other. In Kuala Muda, the best bid might be the one nobody else hears.
