Copyright

Menla Jyab

Published On

2025-09-16

Page Range

pp. 109–132

Language

  • English
  • Tibetan

Print Length

24 pages

4. All-good Menla སྨན་བླ་ཀུན་བཟང་།

Chapter of: Careful Village and Other 'Khashag' from Tibet: The Amdo Comedies of Menla Jyab(pp. 109–132)
Menla Jyab continues with his unique brand of highly imaginative and fantastic storytelling, with a narrative in which—after a fight with his wife—he first ascended to the heavens and then into hell, and even took a trip to America. The patently ridiculous story stretches the audience’s suspension of disbelief near to breaking. At the same time, no matter how far he pushes the boundaries, Menla Jyab’s work is also simultaneously deeply embedded in Tibetan cosmologies and everyday experience as demonstrated through references to everything ranging from intimate partner violence common in Tibetan communities ), to fashions of the day, and to the Lord Yama, who rules the underworld in Tibetan Buddhist cosmologies.

Contributors

Menla Jyab

(author)

Menla Jyab was born in 1963 in a pastoral community called Lutsang, located in Mangra (མང་ར། Ch, Guinan 贵南) County, Tsholho (མཚོ་ལྷོ། Ch, Hainan 海南) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, PR China. Growing up in the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution, he attended primary school in a tent at the age of seven. His studies were good, and he eventually matriculated to the renowned Tsholho Normal School, which served as an incubator for several of the post-Mao period’s most famous Tibetan intellectual and cultural talent. Then, in the 1980s he joined the Hainan Prefectural Song and Dance troupe (མཚོ་ལྷོ་ཁུལ་གླུ་གར་ཚོགས་པ།), and embarked on what would become a storied career as a comedian and public intellectual. Also publishing under the pseudonyms “Pleasure Bringing Snow Child” (T, གངས་བུ་དགའ་སྐྱེད།), and Burning Pebble (T, འབར་རྡེའུ།)—the latter being his childhood nickname and a reference to the childhood injury he received that causes him to conceal his right hand at all times (Anon. 2010)—Menla Jyabb has developed a strong reputation not only as a comedian but as an accomplished poet and essayist as well.

Timothy Thurston

(translator)
Future Leaders Fellow and Associate Professor in the study of Contemporary China at UK Research and Innovation
Associate Professor in the study of Contemporary China at University of Leeds
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3671-641X

Timothy Thurston is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Associate Professor in the study of Contemporary China at the University of Leeds. His research to date has looked extensively at Tibetan comedic dialogues. His book Satirical Tibet: the Politics of Humor in Contemporary Amdo (2025, University of Washington Press) and publications in peer reviewed journals like Journal of Asian Studies and CHINOPERL have all examined some of the comedies translated in this volume. Thurston is also editor of Western Folklore.

Tsering Samdrup

(translator)
Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5468-2180

Tsering Samdrup is from an area of Amdo near to where Menla Jyabb called home in childhood. He completed a PhD at SOAS, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Leeds, and is an assistant professor of instruction at Northwestern University. With research primarily focusing on Tibetan linguistics, key publications that support his volume include “Humilifics in Ma bzhi Pastoralist Speech of Amdo Tibet” in Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 42(2): 222-259, and his translation of the Menla Jyabb’s “The Dream” was published in Yeshe: A Journal of Tibetan Arts and Literature and Humanities.