So basically the only thing that the majority of Americans know about Albania is that they were the bad guys in the movie Taken, starring Liam Neeson. In this movie, Neeson plays a retired CIA agent who's daughter is kidnapped in Paris and sold into sex slavery. The main characters in this field of work, represented in the movie, are Albanians, from Tropoje, where I currently live. Did this make me a little nervous when I found out where I was going to be living for two years, sure. But I've also been pleasantly surprised by the quality of people that live in this place where "the speciality is trafficking women (according to this movie)."While some people say 'any publicity is good publicity' I would argue against that in this case. Albania is such a small country, lost among the borders of Western Europe and the Middle East. It's the size of a small New England state in America and has a population of about 3 million and will forever be known as "oh yeah, that country where those sex traffickers were from in the movie Taken." For this to be the only idea of what Albania is for most of the western world, in my opinion, is doing the country an injustice. While these things do and have happened here, it's not who the majority of the Albanian people are. Most of the time while living here I'm overwhelmed with the hospitality and kindheartedness that I run into everyday.
While I'm guessing most movies that are produced in Hollywood about third world countries choose the most 'interesting' aspect of that community, I'm sure more times than none they people of that country would disagree with the way that they're portrayed. I think too as I post these blogs, it's always in the back of my mind that I want to get the good out about Albanians, I want people to know more of these amazing people that I've been living and working with for over a year now. I hope that that has been portrayed in this journal. I want to share my experiences, positive and negative alike but just teach people that Albanian's aren't all sex traffickers or car thieves. While these things are an unfortunate reality in Eastern Europe, it's not the majority of the population.
Does this mean I'm not going to watch Taken 2? No. I watched the first Taken in the hotel that I hang out in all the time, with my Albanian friends. Their comments included: "Hollywood messed up with the name. Marco is a Catholic name and his last name is Muslim. That would never happen." and "You can tell they actually got Albanian actors because the dialect from Tropoje is perfect."
