NAME : Altea GJANA

TOPIC : American Culture vs. Albanian Culture (Compare&Contrast Essay)

If you’re an Albanian who won the DV Lottery1 and you are getting ready to go to the

United States, it’s time to think again. There is no doubt that many of the American customs

and cultural traits will surprise most of Albanians. On the other hand, the same thing happens

to Americans when they visit Albania. It’s pretty normal to be like that as different countries

have different cultures. Some of the Americans’ type of approach in various situations may

look to Albanians as a lack of protocol or respect. As well as that, the Albanians’ approach

may seem weird and exaggerated to Americans. Between these two cultures exist some big

differences regarding concepts as informality, honesty and parochialism.2

To those coming from Albania where formality is of a great importance in your daily

basis, whenever you find yourself in America, be prepared to have a quite informal

approach, even in your first meeting.3 Americans’ informality may be a big shock to

Albanians. The most immediate need to call someone by their first name is common in

America. Taking for example, meeting an elderly woman. Let’s say the woman name is Sam

Gosling. In America it will start with “Mrs.Gosling” and after a few minutes she will give

you permission to call her “Sam”. Nonetheless, in Albania you can’t stop calling this old lady

“Auntie Sam”. You may be asking yourself, why are you guys calling her aunt: is she your

mother’s sister or your dad’s. No. She isn’t. We just call her auntie Sam. Simple as that.4 We

also know that houses are of great interest to Americans as they spend so much time reading

and talking about the design of houses, their decorations and how to improve them. If you are

invited in an American house, don’t be surprised whether you are shown the entire house

1
DV Lottery – Diversity Immigrant Visa, in Albanian known as the American Lottery
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from top to bottom, including bathrooms and closets. The same happens in Albania.

However, there’s a slight difference concerning the way we treat our guests. Dissimilar to

Americans, who don’t seat their guest in a particular position which is more favourable than

the others, we tend to treat our guests as God on Earth. So, if you are invited in an Albanian

house for dinner, you will be seated in front of the host. I remember from my childhood, I

stayed some days at my dad’s oncle. He and his wife decided to sleep on the couch of the

living room, so me and my brother would sleep in their bed and feel comfortable enough.

They felt urged in an instictive way to make us feel at home.5 That’s how Albanians perceive

respect.

In many countries, people will tell you what they think you want to hear, whether or

not it is true, as this to them is the polite and the right thing to do. Howver, to Americans it is

considered misleading, even dishonest, however kind the motive. They are direct and

transparent to the person in front of them. As strongly opinionated people for them honesty is

the best policy. In contrast to Americans, Albanians tend to make people feel good about

what they are saying without really trying to express their own opinion.6 One factor that

affects this kind of mentality is communism. As a post-communist country, which has always

been told what to do and what to say, we cannot be direct and explicitly speak what’s on our

mind. Similar to Arabs, for Albanians courtesy, honour, family loyalty or many other values

come far ahead of honesty if one were listing priorities. Furthermore, sometimes purely

expressing your point of view may be offensive to the other person, as we are not used to not

care what the other person will think. A little back story : once while taking to one of my

classmates about fashion and clothes, I eventually gave an honest opinion about her outfit.

She took it too personal, started raising her voice and accusing me of offending her.7 To

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summarize, in Albania while giving an honest opinion to somebody, you may end up having

a fight to prove that you weren’t trying to insult this person. Americans don’t have any

problem on asking personal questions. Conversational questions may seem to Albanians both

too personal and numerous – especially in the first arrival. In the American point of view they

are a search of common ground to build a conversation or a relationship. On the contrary,

Albanians don’t like to ask personal questions. Also, they are not interested on the answers of

the questions. So, if you run onto with someone you haven’t met before, Albanians will ask

questions as “What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?”. This

questionnaire contains just some simple demands so they can show the other person that they

want to know something about them.8

As America is a large country considering its geographic size, a lot of Americans feel

that their country is enough to keep them occupied without looking for adventures abroad. If

you want to get tanned and spend some time swimming, you can go to Florida or Hawaii. If

you want to go hiking or mountain climbing, you can visit the Mount Rainer National Park in

Washington. If you are looking for a fishing spot, you can stop by Outer Banks in North

Carolina. Hollywood, Harvard University or The White House; the most famous things all

around the world are located in America.9 It’s a country which offers all the kinds of

possibilities and opportunities to its people. Unlike America, Albania is part of the countries

whom immigration is at the highest rates. Young people are leaving their homeland, so they

can get proper an education abroad. Even though it is a stereotype, we can say that Americans

are inferior about the other countries. In the case of Albanians, we are inferior about our own

country. We are obligated to start learning the first foreign language in school by the age of 9.

As people in Albania tend to immigrate for a better life, learning other languages is

important to get integrated in society. We may know more about Germany, England, France

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or America than we know about Albania. Our vacations happen to take place abroad. As well

as that, business deals are mostly done outside the country.10 So, all tied up, we live more out

of Albania than in it. That’s why the phenomenon of parochialism (a limited or narrow

outlook, especially focused on a local area) cannot exist in Albania.

All things considered, between the American and the Albanian cultures remain a lot

of differences. The informality of Americans appears disrespectful to Albanians. Being

direct and realistic means that you are a negative and offensive person. In addition, we

try to learn as much as possible about other countries and cultures than our own. On

the opposite, Americans don’t like to get out of their reality. As America is such a

diverse country, being dissimilar to Albania, which is a small ex-dictatorial country, is

expected.11 Getting back to the DV Lottery, if you have decided to move to America, here are

e few tips I can give to you. Although, Americans are noticeably informal, if you prefer

somewhat greater formality, feel free to act in your own way. This will likely be acceptable to

those around you. To a large extent, you can “do your own thing” and be respected there.

Moreover, regarding the personal questions, if they seem too personal to you, you can avoid

answering them. You can simply smile and change the topic. If the addressing terms feel cold

and disrespectful to you, feel free to drop all your ways of addressing somebody if you want

to do so.12 The differences may be emphasised, but are not definitive.13

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