Through the Babelfish; An-Noujoum, Zena21 & Tain

Ethan Switch - Friday, 4 July 2003 - Print Version

Foreign language magazines sit nestled on the newsstand alongside the many others, but in this case, this time, the three chosen weren't anywhere near a newsagency. But they were all Foreign Language.

First up, An-Noujoum from the Australian Lebanese Media, a weighty mass of pink pages glossed to a high rate and written in only what could be described as Arabic glyphs or script. At first I thought I was reading a yearbook, that was until I spotted the footer and the numbering indicating that I had it backwards. It still didn't matter, I couldn't make out a single word. The lay out was jarring, the student yearbook/magazine feeling still there, complete with what looks like a spattering of photos from someone's formal toward the end. On a page of caricatures only Saddam Hussein was recognisable, what? The first word I recognised was GAY and marked the first of a few pages on the homosexual party scene, far as I could tell. It was like the personals flavour dripping from the start.

Included in An-Noujoum is An-Nahar, supposedly the most professional Arab Newspaper in Australia. A claim backed up by a survey by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs way back in 1984. How professional can a newspaper be if it's printed in a magazine? And just what does Nicole Kidman and Baz Lurman at the Golden Globes have to do with anything Arabic? I thought Moulin Rouge was a bohemian mix of everything and anything non-specific and drug induced. To round things off, a couple of puzzles, one of which the clues were totally unreadable.

Next, Zena21, a matte magazine in which I have no idea what language it's written in. Down the list of credits it mentions that the publication is an effort helped out by the Bosnia & Herzegovina Project. I couldn't make out what any of the film reviews were going on about, but 8 Mile, Frida and The Quiet American all got four stars. The footers were huge and absolutely useless apart from telling me what page I was on in 72 point numerals. The word puzzle was annoying and not for the fact that I couldn't understand the clues, but that the direction of the answers were not at all indicated. Serbian? Croatian? All the ads were in English so I don't know.

Finally, Tain (pronounced toy-n), a magazine that reads rather easily compared to the other foreign language magazines waded through. Of course, Gaelic being the tongue of the Irish could be one reason, the other being that apart from the contents page the rest is entirely written in English. It probably got away with the Foreign Language sticker on the cover by the Gaelic translations slanted after their respective English counterparts in the aforementioned contents. Published by The Australian Irish Network and written in English, it still was a hard read; the typesetting was crazy, messy and all over the place. From a glance small articles blended into each other with no real easy way to separate them.

Of the three, Tain had the best footer, ripping a page out would still give you an indication as to where the page came from, title and issue. But something's happening beneath the surface, all the non advert urls and email listings were bracketed. What this means I have no idea, but at least I now know a little bit about the White Quakers and Samuel Jacob, a man who fathered around 15 children and saw them grow up. That was the only feature article in the entire issue and was perhaps the most well laid out.

If these reviews need a summary, then I can't find one.

Ethan Switch