Careful Village and Other ‘Khashag’ from Tibet: The Amdo Comedies of Menla Jyab Translated and Edited by Timothy Thurston & Tsering Samdrup

Careful Village and Other ‘Khashag’ from Tibet (Open Book Publishers, 2025) offers a unique glimpse into the world of khashag, a vibrant genre of Tibetan spoken comic dialogues from the area Tibetans call Amdo, with the first ever publication of 11 annotated translations of scripts by its leading performer, Menla Jyab. Emerging in the 1980s during a period of cultural revival in Tibetan communities, khashag fused traditional Tibetan expression with influences from Han Chinese xiangsheng (crosstalk), evolving into a medium of sharp societal critique and joyous entertainment. Menla Jyab, a pioneering performer, used his platform in radio, television, to craft comedies described as ‘having meaning in every line’.

Drawing on a decade and a half of Tim Thurston’s research and his and Tsering Samdrup’s close connections with Menla Jyab, this book 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 notes that illuminate the subtle interplay of humor, critique, and identity in Tibetan life.

Timothy Thurston is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Associate Professor in the study of Contemporary China at the University of Leeds. Tsering Samdrup is from an area of Amdo near to where Menla Jyab called home in childhood. He is an assistant professor of instruction at Northwestern University.

Careful Village and Other ‘Khashag’ from Tibet is freely available to read and download in both PDF and HTML formats.