GTK 2.2.4 with Pango 1.2.5 -- performance depends on language

["Boncek, John" <jboncek hunter com>]

We have a large application that can be run in many languages.  Screen
transitions slow down noticeably in certain languages (with everything
else the same).  In English or Chinese Simplified, a certain screen takes
about 3 seconds to completely display (not fast but tolerable).  In
Japanese, Arabic, Chinese Traditional, or Korean, the same screen takes
about 5 seconds.  The performance doesn't seem related to total amount of
text being drawn, since some of the slow languages use many fewer
characters than English.  Nor does it seem related to font height, since
the 2 Chineses are about the same height.  Nor does it strictly follow the
Roman/non-Roman split, since Chinese Simplified is fast.  All text is in
utf-8.

A search of Bugzilla turned up nothing similar.

We run on the ARM PXA270 architecture, for which there are no profiling
tools available.  I have done extensive searching of the Web for such
tools and all the tools I have found target other architectures (mainly
x86).

Any suggestions on speeding up this display situation would be welcome.