Thein Pe Myint (1)

The following text and translation covers the first page of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 329 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [The new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

ဝေ့ဝိုက် ။ going this way and that way;
အေးမြ ။ chilly
ဟောဟဲ ။ gasp (out of breath)
တလူလူ ။ ? blowing in the wing
တရ​မ်၌ရမ်း swinging
ခံ့ညား ။ imposing, grand, stately, dignified
အသွင် ။ form, appearance
ရုံမက ။ not only... (but also)
နားထင် ။ temple (on one's head)
အကြော ။ anything in the shape of a live of streak; ways, habits, traits of a person
ပိုက် ။ to carry in one's arms
ကော်လာ ။ "collar" (of a shirt)
အစ် ။ to feel tight
ကုပ် ။ to clench, grasp
အထူးတလည် ။ unusually
အံ့ ။ sentence final marker indicating a future event
အဆောင်အယောင် ။ the insignia of office,
ပယ် ။ reject, disqualify, turn down
ငြား ။ emphatic particle suffixed to a verd for emphasis
ဂရုမှု ။ to be mindful

Translation:

Ngwe Sein Broke the Oar While Rowing

On Saturday one April, after working as a lawyer in a legal case at a judge's office in the back section in the direction of 200, I returned to my office on Bar Road (Mahabandoola Park Road). The time was about one o'clock and it was hot with an intensely strong sun. Above the tar on the surface of the road waves of heat could be seen. The light wind that blew here and there from Yangon River was not able to be strong enough to cool.

Since my office was on the third floor of the building I had to ascend to the point of gasping. Although carrying a dignified appearance with the edge of my turban fluttering, the black robe in my hand swinging and my Bangkok sarong making a swooshing sound, the clothing that I had to wear was not very relieving. The turban was not only hot but also made my temples hurt.

While acting as a lawyer I had speak so that great character traits would stand out, and I could feel the pain of the turban. The hand that carried the black robe in my arms and held the case files and the hand that held up the edge of the Bangkok sarong were quite sore.

It was as though the edge of the shirt collar had been unusually arranged so as be hot and constrict my neck. If according to the law a new system were to emerge, in that new system I would especially reject the display of a robe as the symbol of office of a lawyer. Without minding other issues, with just that one issue I would support the new system.