Tree planters (5/12)

This post presents page 5 of 12 of Ma Sanda's short story "The tree planters" from her book Ban-pwint-khayay [Blossoming star flower].

Vocabulary:

ရေရွတ် ။ mutter; revile; rebuke
နုနယ် ။ youthful, delicate
ဝုန်း ။ ?
စသည် " part particle denoting inclusion of other things besides the afore mentioned examples (equivalent in usage to phrases 'et cetra', 'so on', and 'so forth')
ပါ၌ ။ cheek
နှိုင်းစာ ။ to compare
နှစ်သက် ။ love; be fond; be pleased with; like
သတင်းမွှေး ။ have a good reputation; be of good repute
ရွံ့ ။ be afraid; shrink from; be timid
အမှုမထား ။ to disregard; be uncaring
တစ်ပါး ။ other than; except
တဗျစ်တောက်တောက် ။
စမြဲ ။ particle suffixed to a verb to denote habituation or inevitability
သံမှန် ။ moderate tone

Translation:

Poe Tha reacted in surprise. Since Poe Tha was only 16 his knowledge was still immature. He had only heard about life under English slavery, the revolutionary period, the three years of Japanese rule, the bombing damage, and such things that Myanmar had experienced. Those events were distant for him. When mother had explained about the Fascist Japanese striking people on the cheek, pouring hot water on them, and peeling off people's finger nails, he had been surprised and saying "Was it that bad?", he did not dare to believe.

As for mother and father, they had been born after Myanmar had gotten independence and been freed from a life of slavery. If one had to speak about the old man's words, [their meaning was that] the old man [and those of his era] were people who planted the trees. And father and mother were people who ate the fruit. However, if compared with Poe Tha and his generation, who had been close with the tree planters, he was more aware of the value of a tree.

Poe Tha had not lived with the old man and woman and was not very fond of elderly people. [Poe Tha] was quite timid because of the prestigious reputation of the elderly people. The elderly people did not take notice of whether anyone wanted to listen or not. They had the habit of speaking on and on without end. When he spoke to them with a moderate tone, since [elderly people] usually understand, they could not hear. And he had heard that they would get angry if, knowing that they could not hear, he shouted "Do you think you understand me?" So, he was quite scared of having to talk with them. However, that old revolutionary comrade...