Careful Village and Other 'Khashag' from Tibet: The Amdo Comedies of Menla Jyab
About this ebook
Drawing on a decade and a half of Tim Thurston’s research and his and Tsering Samdrup’s close connections with Menla Jyab, this groundbreaking work brings these culturally significant performances to English-speaking audiences for the first time. This richly contextualized volume explores the genre’s linguistic intricacies, performative brilliance, and cultural resonance, highlighting its role in overcoming literacy barriers to reach a broad audience. The translations, based on published scripts and transcribed recordings, are accompanied by insightful notes that illuminate the subtle interplay of humor, critique, and identity in Tibetan life. Careful Village is an indispensable resource for scholars and enthusiasts of Tibetan culture, performance studies, and oral traditions.
About the 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།) Menla Jyab has developed a strong reputation not only as a comedian but as an accomplished poet and essayist as well.
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 is from an area of Amdo near to where Menla Jyab 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 Jyab's “The Dream” was published in Yeshe: A Journal of Tibetan Arts and Literature and Humanities.
