Thein Pe Myint (14)

The following text and translation covers the page 14 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 342 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

နဝမ ။ ninth
စီရင်ချက် ။ judgement
အဖျင်းဆုံး ။ the least
သင်ကြား ။ to teach
အကောင်းသား ။ sth not bad (equivalent in usage to the expression 'it would have been better')
အဝေ ။ distribution, sharing [?]
ထပ်ကွမ်း ။ . . . times winner (of a prize or decoration)
မြူ ။ short for မြူနီစပယ် = municipal
အတန်ကြာ ။ for some time
အဖြစ်အပျက် ။ incident; event; occurrence; happening
အဘိဓမ္မာ ။ Buddhist doctrine embodied in the third basket of the Tipitaka

Translation:

"The court that I have to go to is the chief judge's court in the ninth area on the lower floor of the Great Municipal Court, sir. With the arrest, with the appointed court time and the judgement delivered, since it's at least one or two days, [our] sales work is ruined. As of this day, since we market sellers are people who must eat, if we get into trouble two or three times per month, would we stay without getting frustrated. Therefore, we must look for little ways to not get arrested. As for the market sellers who get into danger, if you were like this, it couldn't be. Of course, this teaches [us] that we must stuff [bribe] them. If you ask where one must pay, the police have a representative in the market. Therefore, it's of course easy to get in touch. If you want to pay a bribe to the judge​, you of course have to approach the head clerk."

"Ah, your affairs are really interesting. Okay, please continue."

"When they don't share with each other, we still have [more] trouble.

As they are still able to come and display their power at his building, my building, of course it's the case that one must pay twice, sir.

It's important to become friends with the municipal police. And if one is not friends with the police and doesn't pay [bribes], the big municipal lorry will arrive with a "woo" sound and forcefully arrest you. A you won't be quickly released, but arrested. Like now, when the day arrived when the special officers and town officers look, sometimes the police can give us notice in advance. And sometimes they can't give us notice."

He was tipping up his cold yogurt drink. After some time I [said],

"And today, I guess that because you did not get given any notice [people] were arrested."

"Only my wife got the news, sir. However, [we] didn't think that it would be as fast as that, sir. And afterwards, one half of the market was still able to sell. And how could we possibly know, sir. Of course it's this way."

Those final words were the words of proclaiming the Abidhamma and the Dhamma from the whole day's process of becoming and dissolution. He pulled out and paid with the five kyat note that I had given him. After that, while repaying me the one kyat, I did not accept it and got up from the seat [saying],

"I said that I would treat the yogurt [drinks]."