Thein Pe Myint (8)

The following text and translation covers the page 8 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 336 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

ယို့ ။ to shrink; cringe; cower
ဖဲထီး ။ umbrella made of satin-finished black cloth
အထားအသို ။ arrangement, placement, layout
ဆိုက်ဆိုက်မြိုက်မြိုက် ။ (arrive) as scheduled, straight, directly
သာသာ ။ precisely [?]
ဖွာ ။ fray; be frayed; be liberal; be free
အပွင့် ။ bloom; blossom
နိုင်လွန် ။ nylon
စတိုင် ။ "style"
ညင်သာ ။ to be smooth; be gentle; (of speech and manner) be polite
ညက်ညော ။ (of personal style) to be smooth; be subtle ; be suave
အားတက် ။ be heartened; be encouraged; be invigorated
အချုပ် ။ lock-up (usually in a police station); custody while under trial.

Translation:

"What's the matter?" I asked quite strongly.

Cowering, Ngwe Sein who was standing, while propping the little umbrella in her hand up against the wall [said]

"It's because I want to submit a legal case to the barrister-at-law, sir.

"Oh, if it is regarding the matter of a legal case, then come to the office building tomorrow at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Okay, get going."

Ngwe Sein, stayed standing.

"Get going."

"My husband."

"Hey, whoever it is, if it's the matte of a legal case then we'll talk in the office. You know the location of the office, don't you?"

"I don't know, sir. It's because we live in this place."

"Hey, wherever you live, after you come to the office we can talk about the matter of the legal case."

In that way, after I had spoken I gave directions together the address so that she would be able to get to my office.

Ngwe Sein grabbed the little umbrella and left. I happened to see that the handle of the little umbrella was broken.

The next day Ngwe Sein arrived at my office as scheduled at precisely 4 o'clock.

Her behaviour had changed significantly since yesterday. Her hair hung freely. Her eyelashes were coloured and her lips were painted red. She was stylishly wearing a new Nylon vest with blossoms. Although the Toberay sarong was not valuable, it had a beautiful design. And she wore high heeled shoes. While pointing to the chair, I politely [said]

"Sit lady friend, sit."

As for me, when I arrived in the office and had relations with clients, I was able to relate with the suaveness of buyers and sellers. She appeared to become encouraged due to my suave relations. She sat down and immediately [said]


"Okay, how [my] lady friend's legal case? What's become of your husband?"


"Although It wasn't my husband, he's been taken into custody on the charge of having accepted stolen goods, barrister sir."