Through blue-tinted glasses

"I can't tell you exactly how long the Bridge is, or where is this and that tower, but I can tell you about people," said Mira Adania-Polak, a young journalist from Belgrade who has just spent 13 days in Australia.

"It's people I'm interested in."

Mrs Polak, whose husband Martin is a computer analyst in Belgrade, has combined a private visit to relatives here with collecting facts for the feature she writes for a woman's magazine in Yugoslavia.

Her page, aimed at teenagers and young people covers fashion and interviews with interesting people in all fields. These have included Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, when they were in Belgrade, and Yoko Ono and Mary Hopkins in London.

A freelance journalist — "but of course!" — she goes abroad for many of her interviews, mainly to London, since London is now "the centre of fashion and happenings," she said.

She and her husband live in a bachelor flat — two rooms and a bathroom — in Belgrade.

"The trouble is I want to live in the centre of the city," she said, "and it's hard to get something there."

She got a degree in psychology at the University of Belgrade before she became a journalist five years ago, because "a journalist has to be educated and a psychologist."

As a freelance she averages about $175 a month and a person needs only half that amount to live comfortably and pleasantly in Belgrade she said.

Mrs Polak will write five stories about Australia for her magazine, including one on Australian women and one on Australian men. She went home (via Hong Kong and Bangkok) yesterday with her notebooks choc-a-bloc with interviews.

But except for one day in Canberra she has spent all her visit in Sydney. So, although she doesn't realise it, her impressions are going to be of Sydney rather than of Australia as a whole.

Canberra wasn't much help, because although she thought it a beautiful city — but strange because it had been planned in advance — she found it hard to meet people there.

Besides using her own eyes, Mrs Polak will be writing about us as an Australian man sees us, because she met a very helpful man at the Immigration Department here.

"He told me so much about Australian women!" she said. "He was a candy! Yes, a candy," she repeated in response to our raised eyebrows.

Perhaps one should translate that as "a sweetie."

But what sort of picture did he draw of Australian women? The Yugoslav teenager will soon find out. But we will never know.

When Mrs Polak gets back to her little flat in Belgrade she will turn the television on without the sound (for company) and the radio on to a station that plays loud pop music all day. Then she will settle down happily in the din to write about Australia.