ငယ်ဖြူ

/ ngal hpyau/

Pure-from-childhood novice/monk

“Pure-from-childhood novice or monk” describes someone who remains innocent, untainted, and inexperienced since childhood, uncorrupted by external influences, and retains a sense of purity and simplicity.

 

အသက် ၇ နှစ်မှ ၂၀ နှစ်အတွင်း သာသနာအတွင်းကို ၀င်လာသော သင်္ကန်း၀တ်သူကို ငယ်ဖြူ လို့ ခေါ်ပါတယ်…..

ငယ်စဉ်ကလေးဘဝကတည်းက လောကီဘဝကို စွန့်လွှတ်ပြီး အဝါရောင်သင်္ကန်း ကို ၀တ်ဆင်ကာ ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ သာသနာတော်သို့ ဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့သော ရဟန်းတစ်ပါး ကို “ငယ်ဖြူ” ဟု လူသိများသည်။ ဤအသုံးအနှုန်းသည် (ကိုရင်) ရှင်သာမဏေ မှ ရဟန်းသို့ တစိုက်မတ်မတ် သွေဖည်သွားခြင်းမရှိဘဲ သန့်ရှင်းစင်ကြယ်သော လမ်းကြောင်းလျှောက်သူအား ရည်ညွှန်းသည်။ “အဖြူ” ဟူသည် သန့်ရှင်းစင်ကြယ် ခြင်းကို ကိုယ်စားပြုသောကြောင့် လောကီ အာရုံ ကာမဂုဏ်များနှင့်အပျော်အပါး များတွင် တစ်ခါမျှမပါဝင်ခဲ့ဘဲ ငယ်စဉ်ကတည်းက ဖြူစင်သန့်ရှင်းမှုကို ထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့ သော ရဟန်းတစ်ပါးဟု ဆိုလိုသည်။

 

 

Unwavering Commitment to Buddhism

A “pure-from-childhood novice or monk” refers to an individual who renounces worldly life early in childhood and dedicates them­selves fully to the Buddhist monastic order, donning the yellow robes.

 

This term signifies a monk who has remained celibate, untouched by worldly pleasures, and committed to spiritual purity since their youth. In Myanmar, such individuals are admired for their consistent devotion to Buddhist practices from the time they enter monastic life as young boys.

 

The term “pure” symbolizes both physical and spiritual purity, indicating that the monk has preserved chastity and innocence throughout their life. The life of a “pure-from-childhood monk” is characterized by uninterrupted dedication, discipline, and a focused path toward enlightenment.

 

This purity is viewed not just in a literal sense but as a deep commitment to maintaining innocence and striving toward spiritual development. Their unwavering path is seen as a model of devotion and consistency in Buddhist practice.

 

USAGES:

Pure as the driven snow

Definition: Completely innocent, virtuous, or untainted by corruption. Example: She’s always been pure as the driven snow, never getting involved in any scandalous rumours.

 

As clean as a whistle

Definition: Completely clean, morally upright, or without fault. Example: After his long period of self-reflection, he’s as clean as a whistle, with no skeletons in his closet.

 

Innocent as a lamb

Definition: Extremely innocent and naive, often used to de­scribe someone who is unaware of worldly vices. Example: He entered the competitive world of business as inno­cent as a lamb, unaware of the ruthless tactics some would use.

 

A saint in the making

Definition: Someone who is on a virtuous path, or is already considered very virtuous, with a moral character akin to that of a saint. Example: Although young, Jane is a saint in the making, al­ways helping others and staying out of trouble.

 

Like a blank slate

Definition: Someone who has no previous experience or pre­conceived notions, often implying purity or neutrality. Example: When she moved to a new town, she felt like a blank slate, ready to start fresh without any of her past weighing her down.

 

Clean as a new pin Definition: Perfectly clean and spotless, free from any dirt or moral impurity. Example: The house was clean as a new pin after the maid finished tidying up.

ပျားရည်နှင့် ဝမ်းချ

/ pyarrai nhang wam hkya/

Feeding them honey for the evacuation of their bowels

ပွေးကိုင်းဖြင့် ဝမ်းမနုတ်ဘဲ ပျားရည်ချိုချိုဖြင့် ဝမ်းသက်စေသကဲ့သို့ ချိုသာစွာ ပြောဆို နှစ်သိမ့်၍ မနှစ်မြို့ဖွယ်အရာကို လက်ခံအောင် နားချသည်။

 

ဒီစကားဟာ ဂျင်း လို့တော့ မပြောချင်ပါဘူး။ ဒါပေမယ့် သူ့ကို ပျားရည်နဲ့ ဝမ်းချဖို့ များ ကြိုးစားနေလေသလားလို့တော့ ပြောချင်ပါတယ်….

 

ငယ်ငယ်ကတော့ မိဘတွေက နာနတ်သီးမှည့်ကို ပျားရည်နှင့် ဆမ်း၍ ကျွေးကြ၏။ သန်ကောင်တွေကျအောင်ဟု ဆိုကာ ကျွေး၏။ “ပျားရည်နှင့် ဝမ်းချသည်” ဟု ဆိုရမည်လား…..

ပွေးကိုင်း (Senna) သည် ရံဖန်ရံခါဖြစ်တတ်သော ဝမ်းချုပ်ခြင်းနှင့် ဝမ်းမာကျစ် ခြင်းကို ကုသရန်သုံးသည့် ဝမ်းနုတ်ဆေး တစ်မျိုးဖြစ်သည်။ အူလမ်းကြောင်းကိုရှင်း ရန်အတွက်လည်း သုံးနိုင်သည်။

 

 

Sweet Talk Deception

The Myanmar idiom “ပျားရည်နှင့်ဝမ်းချ” refers to the act of placating or coaxing someone with sweet-talk, much like how medicine is coated with honey to mask the bitterness of purgatives or laxatives used to treat constipation.

 

It is common to use aloe (Aloe vera) (ရှားစောင်းလက်ပတ်ပင်) or senna (ပွေးကိုင်း), mixed with other ingredients, as a purgative. The smell and taste of these preparations are often unpleasant, but if the purgative is combined with more agreeable ingredients to mask the offensive smell and taste, the experience may be more tolerable. In this way, the act of deceiving or exploiting someone under the guise of kind or soothing words is referred to as “feeding them honey for the evacu­ation of their bowels.”

 

The Myanmar idiom “feeding them honey for the evacuation of their bowels” refers to the act of deceiving or manipulating someone by presenting something unpleasant in a way that appears pleasant or beneficial.

 

The phrase draws on the idea of using a purgative like aloe or senna, which have an unpleasant taste and smell but mixing them with more agreeable ingredients (like honey) to make the experience more tolerable. In the same way, a person may be led to do something unpleasant or uncomfortable, but under the pretence of kindness or smooth words.

 

USAGES:

Sugarcoat the pill

Definition: To make something unpleasant or difficult to ac­cept seem more pleasant or easier to handle by presenting it in a more favourable way.

 

Example: “The manager tried to sugarcoat the news of the lay­offs by highlighting the company’s plans to expand.”

 

Sweeten the deal

Definition: To make an offer or proposal more attractive, often by adding something extra to it.

 

Example: “If you agree to work the extra weekend shift, I’ll sweeten the deal with a bonus.”

 

Butter someone up

Definition: To flatter someone excessively, often to gain favour or influence their opinion.

 

Example: “He spent the entire meeting buttering up his boss in hopes of securing the promotion.”

 

Curry favour with

Definition: To seek to gain someone’s approval or favour by using flattery or doing something to please them.

 

Example: “She tried to curry favour with the teacher by always volunteering to help after class.”

 

Grease the wheels

Definition: To facilitate or ease a process or interaction, often by using charm, flattery, or persuasion.

 

Example: “The CEO greased the wheels of the negotiation by offering the client a special discount.”

 

Take the edge off

Definition: To make something unpleasant or difficult more tolerable, often through kindness or gentle persuasion.

 

Example: “He tried to take the edge off the bad news by telling her how well she had performed at work.”

 

ငယ်မူပြန်

/ngaimu-pran/

To revive youthful styles

အသက်အရွယ်အိုမင်းလို့ မေ့လျော့တတ်တာက သဘာဝတခုပါ။ သူငယ်ပြန်တယ်၊ ငယ်မူပြန်တယ် ခေါ်ကြတာ မျိုးတွေလည်းရှိပါတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် အယ်လ်ဇိုင်းမားလို့ ခေါ်ရတဲ့ အဆင့်အထိ မေ့လျော့သွားရင်တော့ ရောဂါဖြစ်နေတာလို့ သတ်မှတ်ရပါ တော့တယ်…..

လူတို့သည် သက်ကြီးရွယ်အိုများအား ဝတ်စားဆင်ယင်ပုံ၊ ပြောဆိုပုံနှင့် ပြုမူပုံတို့ ကို ထင်ဟပ်စေသည့် ရင့်ကျက်မှုနှင့် ဉာဏ်ပညာကို ပြသရန် မျှော်လင့်ကြသည်။ အသက်ကြီးသူတစ်ဦးသည် ငယ်ရွယ်သူကဲ့သို့ ၀တ်စားဆင်ယင်ခြင်း၊ စကားပြောဆို ခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် ပြုမူသောအခါတွင် သူငယ်ပြန်တယ်၊ငယ်မူပြန်တယ် ဟူ၍ အခြား သူများ၏ လှောင်ပြောင်ခြင်းကို ခံရလေ့ရှိသည်။

 

 

Ridicule of Youthful Aging

In many societies, including Myanmar, older individuals who adopt behaviours typically associated with youth, such as dressing or acting like a younger person, are often ridiculed.

 

Society generally expects ageing individuals to embrace maturity, wisdom, and dignity, which is reflected in their appearance and be­haviour. When older people deviate from these norms, they are often criticized for trying to “revive youthful styles” or reclaim lost youth.

 

This behaviour is seen as inappropriate, a denial of the natural ageing process, and is often viewed as undignified. The negative connotation surrounding such actions reflects a cultural belief that ageing should bring a shift toward seriousness and authority.

 

In Myanmar, this tendency is framed disapprovingly, highlighting society’s expectation that older individuals must embody age-appro­priate behaviours that reflect experience and wisdom. Attempts to act youthful are, therefore, often seen as embarrassing or absurd.

USAGES:

Act your age Definition: To behave in a manner appropriate to your age, especially when someone is acting immature or too youthful for their age. Example: “John, you’re 45 years old now – it’s time to stop playing video games all day and act your age.”

 

Overstay your welcome Definition: To remain in a situation or place longer than is socially acceptable, often because one is no longer wanted or needed. Example: “Tommy, I think you’ve overstayed your welcome at the party – people are starting to look uncomfortable.”

 

Clinging to the past Definition: To hold on to outdated ideas, memories, or behav­iours, often in an attempt to relive or recreate past experienc­es. Example: “You’re clinging to the past by constantly talking about your high school days. It’s time to move forward.”

Trying to turn back the clock Definition: To attempt to reverse or undo the effects of time, often referring to ageing or past mistakes. Example: “She’s constantly getting cosmetic procedures, trying to turn back the clock, but she’s still not happy with her appearance.”

 

Acting like a kid again Definition: To behave in an immature, youthful manner, often when such behaviour is unexpected for one’s age. Example: “He’s in his 50s now, but he’s always acting like a kid again when he hangs out with his friends.”

 

Living in a fantasy world Definition: To refuse to accept reality, often by pretending or imagining things that are unrealistic or no longer possible. Example: “She’s living in a fantasy world if she thinks she can return to her prime years and act like a teenager.”