By now, even if you have been living under a rock (like me) for these past few weeks, you’ve probably had someone you know mention the Turkish TV drama “Noor” that has taken Jordanians by storm. I have no idea what the show is about but I know it involves a good looking guy and a good looking girl. And now that I’ve demonstrated the extent of my knowledge regarding the show, I would also like to point out that between “Noor” and all the football, I now remember exactly why I stopped watching TV eighteen months ago. In any case, avoiding all conversations regarding “Noor” and/or football, the latter of which I have kept with personal tradition by only watching the quarter-final matches and onwards, I found these two caricatures by Emad Hajjaj absolutely brilliant and incredibly creative (as can be expected) in describing the current summer TV-watching situation and its effects on Jordanians pretty accurately.
Rough translation for the non-Arabic reader: (1) “Um-Mahjoob, please don’t divorce me!! I’ll do anything you want!! Tomorrow I’ll even do a nose job surgery to look like (mohanned) on the TV show (Noor)!!”. (2) “If only Germany, France and Britain knew how much young Jordanians love their playing and how much they pay out of their own pockets just to watch them play!!?? I swear to God, if only these creditor nations knew just how much they mean to us, they’d surely feel sorry for us and forgive our loans!”
“I have no idea what the show is about but I know it involves a good looking guy and a good looking girl”—-> ya Nas, it’s ALL about the romance.. tab3an the romance that hasn’t been killed by practicality (according to my sister and her roommate)!! LOL
ALSO,
“the Turkish TV drama “Noor†that has taken Jordanians by storm.it’s not just Jordanians who are going NUTS about it, see this”—-> Jordanians aren’t the only people going nuts about the serial… if you view the following youtube link, you’ll discover that the whole Arab world is totally going insane about it!
ughh I always seem to be living under a rock when it comes to TV shows engrossing Jordanians whether its Star Academy or Bab il 7ara or Noor.
Tat’s funny! especially the part about writing the debt off! lol
tsk tsk tsk……the Arab mind defies common sense sometimes, haven’t we had enough of ottoman imperialism? haven’t they forgotten how their grand fathers not too long ago were persecuted for talking in Arabic?
no offence markus, but there’s no need to get this political about it… let TV shows be TV shows. you dont have to brag about how the turks caused the arab world a suffering! for example if ur watching football, and jordan is playing turkey, u dont have to bring up smthn that happend about a 100 years ago…right? i mean its football for Gods sake.
Let the turks do their shows and let us enjoy them and learn from them as well as others! our country has to be built, and we need the best of us to do it!
Hajjaj is hillarious!
LOL. Thanks for the subtitles 🙂
Stiklays,
You know how much irony your worlds hold, without you even knowing it? Do you know how much the Turks despise us today? Have you ever visited Turkey? If you havent take a trip and walk up to an average Turk and talk to him in Arabic, and see his/ her reaction more likely than not you will get a look you wont soon forget.
The other thing is if Noor is going to help us build Jordan then we are doomed. Countries dont get built by sitting around watching soap operas. If you told me you would be importing Turkish secularism then I would support that, but we have our own culture we dont need to import one, especially from people who look down on minorities till this very day (and historically arabs and armenians).
In case you didnt notice i despise Turks. GO GERMANY!
lool!!!!
v nice drawings, as always Hajjaj is Brilliant!!! any way; I believe u and my brothers are the only ppl n jordan who did not heared or watched “Turkish Noor”. I advice u not to watch it, it is just another “Arabic or Indian Melodrama” with vvv nice looking men and pretty women, and u know what?? I began to hate this TV series, it gives u v “fictional” image about marriage and life, this man “Muhannad”?? I am sure he doesn’t exist:P
about football games, i don’t watch either and i don’t care 🙂
Just for the records, and to be fair to English and Scottish football fans, (انجلترا) translates as England not Britain, as England plays as a separate team in international tournaments (weird but true), Scotland plays separate as well. As does Wales and Northern Ireland; so there isn’t a football team for “Britainâ€.
Other than that I think that this is my favourite blog from Jordan- intriguing articles and thoughts, done with brilliant fluent English.
Stay a Star.
Hi there, am sorry to say Markus’ comments are hypocrit ,how dare you accuse the Turks of racism when you yourself are blurting racist comments…. Yes i visited Turkey and yes i said am an Arab and was more than welcomed. I had just made a 24 million dirhams investment in Turkey based on the beauty of this country and the richness of it’s heritage and prosperity….there is so much we can learn from each other when we OPEN OUR MINDS and EYES !And by the way am not a great fan of Arabic tv shows which unfortunately reflect the vulgar and uncivilsed side of Arabs… maybe a perfect world in Noor would influence producers who portray Arab men beating women and pulling their hair on Arab television!!!! Be positive and the world will embrace you….
Honestly I wasn’t shocked to know that this Turkish episodes made this storm since all non values TV programs has the highest numbers of audience in Arab world..so I have one suggestion to teach the Turkish language in schools to minimize the load on Syrian actors ïŠ
And I would like to kill the dream of girls who melt in love Mohanad, by rumor published here..enjoy reading…
Link :http://www.alekhbariya.org/news.php?action=show&id=1269
Hi everybody, I started to learn Arabic a few months ago. Thus I was surfing the Internet just in order to see whether it was possible to find something useful to improve my -still poor- knowledge about Arabic verbs. I suddenly run against this forum. Better to say against all these replies concerning “Gumus” better known as “Noor” I guess. Well I must say it was a surprise for me to see how popular Turkish TV series are in the Arabic world. Although, when broadcasted, it was popular in Turkey, too. But it never gained such a success. Does anybody know why? By the way, I’d be grateful for any Turkish-Arabic-English dictionaries, if available
I just got back from Jordan and have to admit even thought I dont speak any Arabic I too got engrossed in Noor.Stranger still because I rarely watch that much tv in the states.
Marcus; you must have forgotten how arab people stabbed us behind during world war, taking side with britain..in spite of this , I have nothing against you, ım neutral.Bec. we are muslim brothers and sisters.
I have had it with this show’s buzz.
I said my piece on amernuman.blogspot.com under “Shedding some Noor on Arab Women’s Needs”
I make a point though, don’t I?