It was on a Monday morning …
I was astounded when I read the announcement: at 12:00 today a new exhibition, ”Men Ming zhyl zhashadym“, will open at the State Historical Museum.
At 12:00 today‽ … But today’s Monday!
The British pair of entertainers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann used to delight people with their comic routines. monologues and comic songs like I’m a Gnu and The Gas Man Cometh.
The second of these, (The Gas Man Cometh), describes the delights of having work done on the house by a series of workmen, the gasman, the plumber, the painter and decorator … and it opens and closes on the point that “It was on the Monday morning that the gas man came to call … “.
Monday is a difficult day at the best of the times … if follows the weekend when we should be ready to return to work refreshed and reinvigorated having had a couple of days off work – or at least that’s the theory. Another way of looking at it is “OGIM” – “Oh God, it’s Monday!“
Here most of the museums are closed on Mondays, although they are open throughout the weekend. Some of the smaller museums and privately run galleries are open Mondays through Fridays, but the main ones, (such as The Historical Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts), regularly close on the first day of the working week. They have the same sort of arrangement in France – on school trips we always had to be careful what trips we planned for Mondays.
So you can imagine my surprise when I read about the opening of a new exhibition – on a Monday!
Of course, there is a good reason for the unusual circumstances. The exhibition is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Tugelbay Sydybekov, who was born on May 14th, 1912 – so today marks his 100th birthday.
For the record: Tugelbay Sydykbekov (1912-1997) – was the author of several novels, including: “The people of our time”, “Children of the mountains”,”Female”,”Peers ” and he also wrote Plays and poetry. In addition, he edited and prepared for publication the third part of a consolidated version of the epic “Manas” – “Seitek”, (which tells the story of Manas’ grandson), and was the editor of “Essays on the History of the Kyrgyz Soviet Literature,” which was published in 1960.
So, Happy Birthday, Tugelbay!
There were a couple of other reasons why I was a taken aback by the announcement.
First of all the title of the exhibition was in Kyrgyz, and was translated into Russian in the report as “Ya prozhyl sto let“. Now, although I recognize a few words of Kyrgyz, I can’t say that I really know the language … but I could understand the Russian … “I have lived a hundred years.”
Now this gave me a slight problem … because in English it implies that he is still alive, but he died in 1997. He didn’t live a hundred years, he didn’t even live for ninety years. He died at eighty five. I asked around the office and was told that although my translation was correct, in Russian the phrase can be used for someone who, like Tugelbay, has already died so hasn’t completed the full hundred years but would have if they hadn’t passed away. So rather than translating it as “I have lived a hundred years”, perhaps I should have rendered it as “I would have lived a hundred years“.
OK – I can live with that … but then one of the staff asked me, “Have you got a One Thousand Som banknote?”. ”Yes,” I replied, “Why?” ”Show me,” he said. So I did, and then I realized what he was getting at … Ming Som is one thousand som. The Kyrgyz for one hundred is Zhus - which rhymes with “Juice”. So the title of the exhibition “Men Ming zhyl zhashadym” really means – I have lived for a thousand years – (or, I would have lived for a thousand years).
It looked to me like an embarrassing OGIM moment for someone, somewhere.
To be honest, I don’t know and no-one else in the office could tell me, but maybe the title is a quote from one of Tugelbay’s works. That would at least save the museum staff from some embarrassment, but not necessarily the news agency which included the mistaken translation in its reports.
But, then, maybe I have got it wrong.
Whatever, “Happy Birthday, Tugelbay!“
Bishkek