Thein Pe Myint (18)

The following text and translation covers the page 18 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 346 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

လစ် ။ slip out; slip away
နှိုက် ။ put one's hand into pocket, bag, etc.
ဆူးညှောင်းခလုတ် ။ barrier
V - ရာ V - ကြောင်း ။ a means to V, a path to V-ing
ကျက်စား ။ frequent (a certain place), to inhabit
စဉ ။ to be flung out, be spattered; splash; spatter
ဆံ ။ hair (of the head)
ငင် ။ pull; draw
တစ်ခုလပ် ။ a divorced woman
ပိုးကြပန်းကြ ။ playboy; a single guy who goes after women
တည်ကြည် ။ to be steady in mind and stable in character
ဆွယ် ။ to persuade; try to win sb over to one's views.
အော်ဒါလိုက် ။ go on call as prostitute
မိန်းမရွှင် ။ prostitute
အတည် ။ in earnest; seriously; definitely

Translation:

"As for me, I want to buy well, sell well, work hard and eat. I don't like stealing, concealing, slipping away, lying or pickpockets. Furthermore, if just one person gets into trouble, one can't stay and watch. Therefore, if I see where there are pickpockets or if I see someone about to put their hand into [a pocket, purse etc.], I act so that it can't be done, so that it won't be successful. After that when pickpockets are arrested it helps out regular women and men. Therefore the gangs of pickpockets think that I am like a barrier to their work. As for the market sellers on the road of these guys and I, the difficulty is that [we] cannot avoid each other. As I do not want to see them frequent this area, I can't stay; And because I don't want to know, I can't stay; And because I don't want to have relations [with them], I can't stay. Some of them say that in order to be free of danger, if we see them putting their hand [into someone's pocket], to quickly turn are faces away. And when the police ask, to answer that we don't know. As for me I can't be like that. And one last thing, the issue of Ngwe Sein, sir."

He suddenly stopped the words that he was splattering out from a water jug. While speaking, was he pulling the hair at the back of his head? Was the listener enticed to become more interested?

"Yes, as for the matter of Ngwe Sein it still remains. Please speak. How is it?"

"Ngwe Sein is the eldest daughter of Daw Mya who sells bananas and papayas at the head of 24th Street. Is Daw Mya a widow? Is she a divorcee? I don't know. As for me, up until now I haven't asked who Ngwe Sein's father is. Is he still around? Has he already died? A cute little girl​​, below her there are three more children. Therefore, there are of course quite a lot of flirtatious young men, sir. However, there are more flirtatious men who would ruin her than there are flirtatious men of stable character. And there are those who would persuade her to go out as a prostitute. The scariest part of this is a guy called Ba Tote who is in the gang of pick-pockets who have a grudge against me. Ba Tote is not a regular pick-pocket. He is a guy who has business relations with pimps. As for him, he's a guy who would send Ngwe Sein to a brothel. As for me, I seriously have real loving kindness."