I am going for a Fulbright Grant to Albania and Lithuania fall 2009 to spring 2010. My proposal in short is: I will show my Dalai Lama Short (Cannes 2008 Short Film Corner Movie; WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD ( with Lithuanian and Albanian subtitles, separately for each country)) to children of the respective countries and film the children’s responses to the film and how they would “change the world,” and focus on the different and the same responses from the children of Lithuania and Albania respectively. I need to contact an institution in both countries for moral and verbal support as required for the Fulbright Grant Proposal. I will be asking for support from the Albanian Short Film Festival; Tirana International Film Festival, Cinema Short Film Festival ( I will also be entering my Cannes short into that festival,December 1st, 2008). I have the support of the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Media Center in Hope all is well with you and yours! I am filling out my application for a Fulbright Grant (October 2009 to May 210) to Lithuania and Albania respectively.

If you have any suggestions for any other institutes in Albania that would be more appropriate, please let me know. Or if you are or know someone who can help with translation once I am there please let me know. Thank you Sincerely Saandra
saandrasteinfelt@u.boisestate.edu

Anyway, back to the discussion here, I also think that hospitality has changed a lot these years. Sometimes I just miss those times when people were so simple and so friendly (not saying that they’re not so anymore, it’s just a different level or way of demonstrating it). In fact if we analyze some of the reasons of that great hospitality we come up with the fact that at those times people had not much to do, as someone mentioned above. The TV (when people got one at their homes) broadcasted just for a few hours, there were no bars (or very few and not the kind of nowadays). The entertainment for the people was just a walk at the park, visit each-other at home (any time they wanted, without asking for the right time to be received), gather for special occasions (which were very looking forward) such as birthdays, marriages, engagement, recovering from some bad health condition or anything else I’m not reminded to now. Every reason was good enough to show up at your relatives’ or friends’ homes. This is of course a good thing, because it keeps people friendly and hospital (if someone comes to your home often, you have to take care of that person feeling good there).
Oh, I forgot the occasions when someone coming from another city (other than the capital) to study in the faculties of Tirana, just came to your home, staying there for the whole time of studying.

So, if we see, even if it had some good aspects, it was somewhat excessive, boundaries were not very much respected. Privacy was not much respected. Your business was others’ business. So, I think part of the fading of Albanian hospitality has to do with that also. People urged to be free of “obligations” (because some did that also just for moral obligations or just for not being judged) and be free and have their own space, their own things and privacy. As e result hospitality had to suffer some, but I think it was right this way. You just cannot be kind of cooperative, in my opinion, but it’s right to have your circle of friends and relatives with whom you just feel more comfortable and more close.

Of course Albanians are still hospital, but with the ones they just want to and within logical limits. This is the difference I think. One cannot just come to you and say anymore that s/he’s going to stay at your place for the entire study period. You have now other options, you can rent a place, you can stay at a cheap hotel, you can stay at hostels, etc.
Now you can invite someone for the night, for dinner, at e restaurant, for a coffe, etc. people still get together even if not that often due to the daily obligations and many things you have to do.

If I think back to those times, I really miss them, but maybe it’s just nostalgia of childhood times. I rather like more this times, the boundaries we have to respect, people’s privacy and doing things freely whenever and however you like.

A last thing I wanted to stress out. I live in a new building and as you know there are many families living in new building with many floors and many flats per floor. You just get on the elevator and have not much possibilities to meet with your neighbors, except for sometimes on the elevator, but even then just a “hello” is enough, not anymore. I just don’t know many of my neighbors, some of them I have seen, with some I just have exchanged a few word,s others I just don’t know and never have seen. (Quite different from old times when you knew everyone in your building, not to say in your hallway), and I somewhat like it, but I have noticed something. There were some cases when my neighbors needed my help (both of them forgot once their keys inside and had to go in from the balcony, ehh). I was very glad to help them out and invite them in and never thought this was an invasion of privacy :))))
So, what I’m trying to say is that privacy is important, but what we should not loose from our culture I think it’s being helpful when others are in need, not shutting the door at their faces.

Ok, since you cannot stop me going on, I’m doing it myself, cause it ended up a roman
Thank you for the time reading my opinion
Have a good summertime and God Bless!

Elvis

I personally think that life in Albania and especially in Tirana is very fast and people are pre - occupied with making a living and keeping up with the pace of life. This factor in turn affects the time people have to spend at home and consenquelty I believe this has an inpact in being able to preserve Albanian’s great hospitality intact as some people know it.
On the other hand, the further away from the Tirana you go, life becomes much slower and people have the time to sit and spend more time at home, with relatives and friends (and this is mainly thanks to the people who imigrate to support their families).

I personally come from Tirana and each time I go there to visit my family I notice a profound change in Tirana’s culture and hospitality. I must say I am saddened to see the real Tirana (15 year ago) fade away. But hey I am an open minded person and I have to be prepared for the changes that incur to my great city.

Even we Americans have to work hard these days to preserve aspects of our culture which are being eroded, but which we feel are important. Sometimes we have to work very hard. The most valuable things in a culture are never easy to preserve.

Back to Albania though. We did notice that the “fshataret e Shqiperise” were typically far more hospitable than the “qyqetaret.” I know that some of you will not like to hear that, but that is what we found. This may have to do with relative levels of wealth, as some have suggested. It may also simply have to do with the real differences between city and country living. Basic patterns of life in these two different settings are different and it effects cultural forms.

In my trips to Sri Lanka and other poor countries in Asia and Africa, I have encountered great friendliness and hospitality. In order for me to experience that, i.e. the friendliness and hospitality, I had to identify myself with them. I went to them and started talking to them. I would join their kids and play with them, and they would gleefully welcome me in their midst. A visitor who goes to a visit some place, never stops to talk to the people, not even a good day or goodbye, of course he is not gonna be able to experience and know how friendly or hospitable the people are. Someone who is “out of left field” sure does not know experientially how good, or hard, or fun it is to play baseball.

I have been to most of the rural Albania, and I must say that I have felt honored and privileged to be Albanian, as I always am. Most of the times I have been accompanied by foreigners, and they have been mesmerized by the hospitality of the Albanian people. One made this comment back in 1996 and 2000: “If you were in America, you would have to bring your sleeping bag with you, a little tent, and enough food for the time you think you are gonna be away.”
Other times I have been unaccompanied by any non-Albanian, and still, I have been treated like a King.
Tirana is an axception. It is becoming more and more westernized, internationalized and people from all over Albania populate it, and you CAN in NO WAY excpect Tirana to preserve Albanian culture.
So, I guess I only told the same story in some different words. But I must say that I fully agree with Alida or Elvis.

I am happy to see you agree with me, still I believe that Albanians in general have a real sens of hospitality and, no matter materialism I hope that it will not vanish from our traditions.

And ‘yes’ it does require a sense of openness towards others, but that openness is also affected by the openness of the people around you.

Anyway, I remain convinced that the growing materialism of Albanians has affected our hospitality as well, and that is more true in Tirana, as you so rightly pointed out.

I enjoyed the topic you presented here on albanian hospitality, and I do agree that more a city becomes cosmopolitan, more individualism finds its shape.
Firstly,I do not know about your friend (whether he has been living in Tirana only) but it seems clear to me that Tirana is not Albania, I mean Tirana without its suburbs. No, I am not to say that we are in a clear individualistic society, but still in its way here in my point of view there is another kind of individualism Albanians are about to develop.
Secondly, I have noticed that internationals living in Albania have created a certain “club” among themselves, socializing only between themselves, the reason seems still weird to me.
Thirdly, I was brought to believe form my personal experience, that it is people which create a country (society) and not the country creating them. So may be your friend no matter how you appreciate him, or you find great, has not shown the same interest to other people till the point of being invited.

Forth and not least, I lived for 4years in Paris, and no matter the individalism reigning there, I was invited many times to dinner by my french friends, and I invited many times them in my place to dine with me. Though many of Parisians I met were complaining and saying they are not invited. by each other. So I guess one more reason to your theseis it has to do with integration of someone’s in the new country’s society he is living.

Pershendetje / Greetings