Monday, April 26, 2010

Globalizationnnnn

Globalization, which is necessary to sustain the economy the United States usually prides itself in, is not a practice I wholeheartedly agree with. Importing our products from China and our workers from Latin America just to cut prices is not all Globalization is about. Unfortunately, with omnipresent internet and the progression of technology, it seems that globalization has come too far to be controlled. While some of the effects have been beneficial to not only our country, but other ones around the world, I feel as if some effects exist just to mock how important the United States thinks it is.
One of my favorite aspects about globalization is that it allows people from different cultures to connect and explore new things. Many college students now learn one, two, or three foreign languages so that they can be competitive in their respective job, which will undoubtedly do business with other parts of the world. When these students not only learn a language, but learn about the culture, they are showing how important it is to understand and find interest in other countries. So many Americans refuse to venture even so far as a genuine Polish restaurant, or any store not Americanized, that the ones that do find themselves embraced by an exciting culture they can now be a part of. I think that understanding other cultures and visiting different countries to see their lifestyles and how they act differently from Americans is incredibly important and a key component to becoming fluent in a foreign language.
Unfortunately, technology allows us to sit back and have long distance phone calls and even more impersonal emails. Instead of reveling in another culture, we push our culture onto them, planting McDonalds anywhere we can find, across seas, down in Latin America, etc. While the Americans may have coined McDonalds, and while it may be a large part of our culture, don’t you think there is any other better restaurant we could share? If you go to the right foreign restaurants here, you get an actual meal, for the most part cooked (not fried) by people who actually lived in that country. Why don’t we have American versions of these in other countries? No, we prefer to just quickly build a profitable McDonalds where the locals can work for minimum wage. That’s how we want America being seen.
Globalization has also led to tourism around the world, but with this tourism do you really get to see the city or country you’re in? No. Most large cities have certain sections where all their hotels are so that the tourist is conveniently in a spot where they can have an Americanized visit to all the tourist spots which just happen to be next to McDonalds and KFCs, without ever having to speak another language. What exactly does a tourist gain by this? Usually not too much.
The point here is that globalization has positive effects on our economy and the efficiency of global products, but many negative effects on how we interact with other countries. It would not only help our business relationships, but our country, to delve deeper into other countries’ culture and perhaps learn from it.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with Julia’s point of view on globalization. She makes a good point about globalization being good for the United States’ economy, but not good for our relations with other countries. The exploitation of workers in the factories of U.S. companies overseas isn’t doing anything good for our relations with underdeveloped countries. These are the countries that are supposed to benefit from globalization. Also, I think that it is a valid point that globalization is causing everything to become Americanized everywhere. Americans really don’t ever have to step out of their comfort zone, even when they travel to another country. I think that this is a terrible thing because it makes it convenient for Americans to not learn about other cultures. In order for cultures to be respected and continued, they have to be learned about and seen.

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