Banmaw Tin Aung (8)

This post contains page 8 (p.68 in the volume I have) of the short story "Saw Khin and her livelihood" by Banmaw Tin Aung. A full version of this story in PDF format is available here.

 Vocabulary:

အရပ်လေးမျက်နှာ ။ the four cardinal points of the compass
ရင်ဆိုင် ။ face-to-face; to face, to confront
နဖူးတွေ့ ဒူးတွေ့ ။ directly (direct contact)
မေးမြန်း ။ to ask, inquire
အမ်း ။ to refund, to give back change
တိုက်တွန်း ။ to urge, exhort
ငါးချဉ် ။ pickled fish
မွန်း ။ to be smothered; be suffocated
ဟန့် ။ prevent or stop someone from doing or saying sth
ဘုပြော ။ to speak disagreeably

Translation:

... and there were [movie] workers and [people] like that. At that time, those people on the buses who were taking trips to and from every direction did not think that they would have to have difficult and exhausting direct relations with the likes of the people who sold the tickets. Saw Khin had to have more face-to-face social relations with famous movie actors and actresses. [She] had to have direct relations with the large audience that came and went on many daily trips. [She] asked [about destinations]. [She] sold tickets. [She] requested money. [She] gave back the change.

During the trips to and fro there were passengers of various classes and ethnicities. [She] had to speak with everyone. [She] asked "Where will [you] go?" "Please buy a ticket" she exhorted to remind [the passengers]. Especially during rush hour the whole bus car was crammed with passengers like packaged fish-paste [and] packaged pickled fish.

Like that, while pushing through with difficulty in between the tightly packed people Saw Khin did her livelihood work. Like that, prior to the passengers disembarking from the bus, [she] had to call out from in between where [she] suffocated unable to breathe, and stop the spectators who were forcefully pushing through and onto the bus. Like that, she had to endure the disagreeable speech of some of the passengers whom she had blocked.