Americanization and Globalization

Coca colonization

Quite obvious, coca colonization is a portmanteau of the name of the multinational soft drink maker Coca-Cola and the word colonization, therefore it is used to imply the impartation of western (particularly American) goods, or an invasion by western and especially American Cultural values being dangerous to a culture.

McDonaldization

McDonaldization is the process by which a society takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. It comes from the popularity of McDonald’s all around the world.

Disneyfication

While disneyfication, taken from the name of The Walt Disney Company, describes what some see as the way principles of Disney theme parks are spreading throughout society.
Coca-Cola has become a universal drink, McDonald’s are all around the world, Disney cartoons are popular all over the world and Disney theme parks are opened in more and more countries. Moreover, the Economist magazine even uses the “Big Mac index” the comparison of a Big Mac’s cost in various world currencies to informally judge these currencies’ purchasing power parity.

Coca-cola, McDonald’s and Disney therefore have become emblematic of globalization. The McDonald's are so famous all around the world that there even is a theory predicts that globalization and free economies had triggered such a wave of economic prosperity that no two countries with McDonald's restaurants would go to war.
In fact, McDonald's, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) have become enduring symbols of open markets.
However, the corporate fast food chain industries of the United States are now viewed as modern-day economic colonialists. This can be seen from the name of "coca colonization". However, as they are closely identified with the American culture and lifestyle, coca colonization, McDonaldization, and disneyfication have been seem as a part of Americanization, which is the globalization by the U.S. of the world.
Many think that America has interfered and forced its culture on other countries that do not want to be “Americanized”, particularly France. Many that oppose Americanization tend to against globalization as well. The famous example is the Muslim extremists.

Then, does Globalization = Americanization?

The answer is no. maybe we can say that Americanization is a part of globalization. Due to globalization, the ideology, culture, technology and materials are free to move all around the world and the countries are interdependent on each other than ever. Because of globalization, America as the only superpower in the world, with advanced technology, distinct lifestyle, and advanced ways to do business, successes in globalization and has spread its culture, American lifestyle all over the world through famous American companies such as Coca-cola companies and McDonald’s.

Does Americans really success in the war of globalization? As globalization of culture can be seen as a melting-pot of the global culture, if the culture is in global scale is the dominating culture, there will be a large part of that culture shown all over the world, and many of the characteristics of that culture will be shown in this global culture. Therefore if the American culture has become the dominate culture, it somehow win the war. However, the truth is the opposite.
Americanization in fact does not bring pride to the Americans. In fact, it has brought hatred for the U.S. and threats on their power and freedom. The Americans feel that it has caused wrong judgments to be made about American life. America, used to seen by the world as a great model of democracy, now, is seen as a country full of violence and inequality.

Reference: http://www.msu.edu/~millettf/americanization.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocacolonization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonaldization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyfication

Localizing Cultures

Localizing Cultures
By Jeremy Seabrook
Korea Herald January 13, 2004

Although the word globalization suggests a comprehensive and self-evident process, it is an incomplete term. It does not indicate precisely what is being globalized: the assumption is that it means the emergence of a single worldwide economy, into which all economies must integrate themselves, or more accurately, be integrated in the passive voice. But globalization does not obligingly halt at some ill-defined frontier between economics, society and culture. Indeed, it has its own set of cultural attendants, which exercise a profound influence on the life of peoples everywhere. By definition, globalization makes all other cultures local. But to billions of people all over the world, their culture is not local. It is central to their lives and who they are. Globalization eclipses, or at least subordinates all previous ways of answering need and of dealing with the vicissitudes of human life. All other ways of life are diminished and marginalized at a stroke.
Globalization is a declaration of war upon all other cultures. And in cultural wars, there is no exemption for civilians; there are no innocent bystanders. Why should it be expected that ancient and rooted civilizations are going to accept this peripheralisation without a struggle? The answer to that is that globalization carries an implicit promise that it will relieve poverty and offer security - perhaps the most ancient of human dreams. Because of the power of global capitalism to create wealth, it is assumed that this priority must sweep aside all other human preoccupations, including all existing institutions, interpretations and searches for meaning in the world.
One U.S. academic describes it as a confrontation between global civilization and local cultures. One reason for the sense of incompleteness in the word globalization may be that it is a euphemistic contraction of global civilization; and that it is how it is promoted.
It is disingenuous to assume that economy, society and culture operate in separate spheres. Indeed, the way in which geographical entities are now designated shows the increasing porosity of these notions. An advanced economy, an industrialized nation, a mature economy are set against a developing country, an emerging market, a liberalizing society. The terms are almost interchangeable. This suggests that, once exposed to the globalizing imperative, no aspect of social life, customary practice, traditional behavior will remain the same.
There have been, broadly, two principal responses in the world, which we may call the fatalistic and the resistant. It is significant that among the most fatalistic have been the leaders of the G-7. Ex-President Clinton said globalization is a fact not a policy choice. Tony Blair said it is inevitable and irreversible. It may be considered paradoxical that the leaders of the most dynamic and expanding economies in the world offer such a passive, unchallenging view of what are, after all, human-made arrangements. These are among the richest and most proactive regimes, which can wage endless war on the great abstraction that is terror, topple regimes and lay down one WTO law for the poor and another for themselves. Is their helplessness in the presence of these mighty economic and cultural powers merely pretence?
There are two aspects to resistance. One is the re-assertion of local identities - even if local actually means spread over very large parts of the world. The reclaiming of the local is often focused in the field of culture - music, song, dance, drama, artifacts and folk culture. This suggests an attempt to quarantine it from the effects of economic integration; a kind of cordon sanitaire set up around a dwindling culture. Some people believe it is possible to get the best of both worlds - they accept the economic advantages of globalization and seek to maintain something of great value, language, tradition and custom. This is the relatively benign response. The other has become only too familiar: the violent reaction, the hatred of both economic and cultural globalization which many not merely perceive, but feel in the very core of their being, as an inseparable violation of identity. The resentment of many Muslims (not only extremists) toward the U.S. and Israel, the defensive posturing of Hindu fundamentalism, opposed both to Islam and Christianity, are the most vivid dramatizations of this.
The appearance of Christian fundamentalism in the very heartlands of the globalizing forces of the world, suggest that even here, there is a sense that values, beliefs and faith are being sacrificed to global necessity, and there has been an effort even by the most spectacular beneficiaries of economic globalization to salvage what they see as some of their most precious truths. The stigmatizing of the bearers of resistance as extremists or those who hate freedom is too simple a formulation for these complex and painful processes. To be unable to acknowledge the profound and complex social and religious disruptions that come as inseparable spectral companions of economic globalization has been the most grievous failure of the rich and powerful. That this strikes at the roots of human search for meaning ought to have been clear, particularly to those who invest so much in intelligence and security - abstractions which have become as insubstantial as the terror against which these are supposed to be deployed.
For instance, the almost mystical and transcendent purposes assumed by consumption, the prodigality and waste of resources, particularly in the presence of billions of people who must eat every last grain of rice on their plate, the disgracing of such ancient virtues as frugality, husbanding resources, sustaining water and soil, the reverence for habitats that have given life for millennia - all this is detached from the dry bureaucratic prescriptions and advice offered up by the experts and professionals of development from the sequestered luxury of five-star hotels.
When anger bursts forth, it is greeted with a monstrous show of incomprehension, and alas, wholly bogus humanitarianism, since the leaders of the globalizing world have sacrificed vast numbers of the poor in pursuit of their unrealizable vision of a whole planet colonized in their own image. The West had centuries to absorb these lessons and adapt its spiritual and religious values to those of a capitalism which usurped them, even though these did not go down without a struggle. But when these values are diffused globally, dogmatically, unmediated by time, with what violence they strike against the sensibilities of others. What a gratuitous onslaught it seems, what injurious affronts to rooted identity and custom. This then, is the context in which terror is to be stamped out. Who declared the cultural war which accompanies the economic re-arrangement of a whole world? Who initiated the terrible, terrorizing, terrifying doctrines that only by the grace of participating in the global market, will every individual in the world and those she loves, survive to see another day?
url: http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2004/0113jeremyseabrook.htm

date retrieved: 2nd May, 2007

my comment

Culture, as referred to the beliefs, ways of life, art, and customs that are shared and accepted by people in a particular society will be localized during the globalization process. Globalization exercises a profound influence on the life of people everywhere and unifies the different ways of people’s life. The author believes that globalization is a declaration of war upon all other cultures. And because of the power of global capitalism to create wealth, it is assumed this priority is over all other human preoccupations, including all existing institutions, interpretations and searches for meaning in the world. Even in Christian fundamentalism, values, beliefs and faith are being sacrificed to global necessity. And because of the benefits in economy due to globalization, we are even not able to acknowledge the profound and complex social and religious disruptions.

In my opinion, globalization is the inevitable trend of human development. Though there will be changes take places due to globalization and some cultures will diminish, but others will survive. Even when there is no globalization, time will select the cultures to stay or diminish. This has been seen along the history. Globalization only increases the speed of selection. A wonderful culture will never diminish if it can withstand the test of time and the test of its lovers. If there is a decrease in the popularity of the culture, the culture is more endangered than those of high popularity. However, globalization on the other hand, helps us to discover those endangered culture and therefore take actions to preserve them. Thus globalization also helps those endangered cultures to discover new lovers to inherit them, as when the endangered culture is highlighted, more people are aware of this culture, and take part in preserve it and may become faithful fans in that culture and thus contribute new blood to the culture and help the culture to flourish once more.

Furthermore, though some culture may be diminished in the process of globalization, there will be new cultures produced. Commonly it is said that globalization will bring us together. A uniform culture might be formed on a global scale. However, this does not seem to be true. In fact, new groups and cultural zones have been formed. Globalization and the advanced technology especially in communication areas such as Internet have allowed people from different parts of the world come together and create new groups and cultural zones. People are moving into separated communities with those like themselves and build visible or invisible barriers to keep strangers out. The categorized groups on the Internet that do not allow others to join in are examples. Moreover, as the globalization continues, in fact, the specification of different things is developing as well. This means that with the development of globalization, the things are classified and divided more specifically than ever rather than unified. For example, the music, news, radios, magazines have all segmented.

Fish Story

Sushi, as an icon of Japanese food culture, has gone into the daily lives of many people all around the world, and thus becomes a symbol of globalization. Sushi also has a long history in Singapore. First was served only to the Japanese customers along with other Japanese foods. Almost all the sushi restaurants were run by Japanese. And there were only a small number of Japanese restaurants in Singapore, about 10 and 20 in 1970s and between 40 and 50 in the mid-1980s. However, there are more than a hundred Japanese restaurants in Singapore and about one-third of the Japanese restaurants in Singapore are sushi restaurants. And Singaporeans have become the main consumers of sushi in Singapore. And in fact, the number of Japanese restaurants in Singapore can match that of McDonald’s!Sushi, as a much healthier cuisine with rice, fish and vegetables, and the wonderful and appetizing design, now is favored all around the world and signaling a rejection of American junk food. And from the case of sushi, it shows that globalization does not necessarily homogenize cultural differences nor erase the salience of cultural labels. In fact, because of the brand equity of sushi as Japanese cultural property, with the Japanese fashion wind sweeping around Asia, even the world, many people start to taste sushi as a fashion and love it and add the likes toward Japan.And sushi is different from most of the foreign cuisines in a way that sushi and Japanese food in general found their way into mainstream society trough international travel and business in the 1960s and 1970s, however, other foreign cuisines usually started out in immigrate communities.The raw materials of sushi, fish, have shown the traits of globalization as well. For example, in the Japanese fish market, Tsukiji, the world largest seafood market, octopus from Senegal, salmon from Norway, eel from Guangzhou, and urchin from Maine are sold all around the world in the blink of an eye. And bluefin tuna, Japanese most favored seafood, can be traded many times across currencies and oceans, and will travel thousands of miles, only to be eaten eventually. Globalization in fact has also changed sushi. This diffusion of culinary culture can be shown in the tastes for sushi. Rainbow roll sushi, opened by Ms Shibata who once lived in America, brings the Japanese a globalized sushi – American-style sushi with cream cheese and chili as some of the ingredients, adds beauty to this traditional food culture of Japan.

references: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/12.06/03-bestor.html
www.motherjones.com/news/mustreads/2000/12/122300.html

From Cultural Revolution to Culture Exports

From Cultural Revolution to Culture Exports
By Antoaneta Bezlova
Inter Press Service July 28, 2006

While the world is getting used to China's ballooning global trade surplus, Chinese mandarins fret over the one area that the country has been posting a continuous deficit in -- culture.
China may be now the world's fourth largest economy, wielding increasing influence in everything from global trade talks to currency rates but it lacks the success stories of "Harry Potter" and "The Da Vinci Code", which would transform it into a cultural heavyweight producing works of universal appeal.
As far as culture is concerned, "we still have very bad deficit to resolve," Zhao Qizheng, former minister of the state council information office said in May this year. "It runs counter to China's fast growing economy which has been expanding by an average of 10 percent since 1979."
Redressing the country's cultural deficit is not a problem that the Chinese government officials are intent on leaving on the backburner while labouring to appease global fears of China's increasing trade might. On the contrary, the rise of what are domestically described as "cultural industries" is seen by Beijing as the next step along a path marking the country's transformation from developing nation to world power.
With Beijing due to play host to the 2008 Olympic Games, the next few years are being perceived as an opportunity for the country to show that it is more than just the world's largest manufacturing workshop. "It is high time to make ourselves better understood by the world's people," says Du Ruiqing, a scholar from Xian International Studies University.
Attempts to use cultural pursuits in boosting China's image overseas are part of Beijing's overall diplomatic strategy to portray itself as a "soft power", as opposed to the United States' profile of a harsh-talking and domineering power, which also does not seek to impose its development values or interfere in other countries' internal affairs.
In diplomatic corridors from Africa to Latin America and Asia, Chinese politicians have tried to advance the image of a harmonious and peace loving country, guided ethically by its Confucian values of universal acceptance and peaceful co-existence. Culture has come to play an important part in the persuasion process.
"To go global, China must perfect its cultural policy and rebuild the image of Chinese culture," noted an editorial in the People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship, in the fall last year. It went on to call for the creation of "China-made" cultural products. "While China continues to welcome foreign cultural products, a 'China wind' has still not stirred up much dust," it lamented.
Foreigners in China are frequently reminded that as a civilisation with more than 4,000 years of history, the country boasts a long and impressive cultural heritage. But Chinese people and cultural officials in particular, also complain that observers overseas get a very slanted view of China from existing art, culture and news reporting.
Now, Chinese cultural gurus are keen to reverse that. In order to help a worldwide spread of Chinese culture they have embarked on a massive drive to popularise the Chinese language. Beijing has announced plans to set up 100 Confucius institutes around the world to help foreigners learn China's official language, the Mandarin.
The ministry of education says some 40 million people are learning Chinese the world over but predicts the figure will hit 100 million by 2010. In China alone, the number of foreigners studying Mandarin has grown from 36,000 some ten years ago to 110,000 this year.
As the language is popularised, books and publishing are also being made a focus of China's cultural offensive. Officials are looking for a success story that would firmly reestablish China on the literary map of the world and make foreign publishers engage in bidding wars for the translation rights.
Last year gave a glimpse of what future could have in store for one of the world's fastest growing book markets. Penguin Books set a Chinese record when it purchased for 100,000 US dollars the worldwide English rights for the literary bestseller of Jiang Rong, ?The Wolf Totem'.
"The new cultural drive is not unlike the 'Think UK' campaign the British government embarked on a couple of years ago to persuade the Chinese people that we (British) are not just fog-bound Dickensians," says Jo Lusby who represents Penguin Books in China. "The difference here, though, is that they are viewing this as being in response to perceived 'cultural deficit', as though these things can be quantitatively measured".
Beijing however, knows that cultural expressions such as films, music and art can be lucrative export items just like any other product and wants to see China rivalling Japan and South Korea as pop-culture trend-setters and major cultural players in Asia.
Currently, Japan and South Korea's cultural industries account for 13 percent of the international culture market while China and all the other countries in Asia make up some six percent, figures of ministry of culture show. "China is unable to bring out cultural products that can compete or compare with the Korean drama series 'Dae Jang-geum', or the Japanese cartoon 'Chibi Maruko Chan' or any of Disney's animation efforts," the People's Daily editorial expounded.
Still, cultural officials here hope that following a worldwide scramble to invest in China's manufacturing industry, the country's cultural market is the next golden opportunity for foreign investors.
The cultural industry's total added value in 2004 was 42 billion US dollars, accounting for two percent of China's GDP. In a remarkable contrast with the years before the 1979 economic reforms when cultural undertakings were neither considered nor operated as a business, now some 10 million people work in the domestic cultural industries.
During the long years of political campaigns of Mao Zedong's reign (1949-1976) Chinese Communist Party rallied people to destroy the "four olds" -- everything from old customs and festivals to old beliefs and traditions. But nowadays the market potential of Chinese culture and its appeal to the millions of tourists visiting the country has led to an officially sanctioned cultural renaissance at home as well.
This year the State Council, or China's cabinet, established a new Cultural Heritage Day, devoted to promoting and preserving China's intangible cultural heritage. A list of "endangered" cultural traditions, including old craftsmanship and festival rituals, to be protected has been drawn up as well as a new law on the preservation of China's cultural heritage. A series of new museums and cultural venues are being planned for unveiling in Beijing before the Olympic Games arrive in 2008.
But as the government has fervently embraced the hot cultural industries some intellectuals have sounded caution. "I'm all for China-made cultural products," says writer Hong Ying. "However, I don't want to see them being manipulated in some new political campaign. If Chinese leaders are really intent on promoting culture they should abolish censorship so that free ideas can flourish and hundred thoughts contend."
url: http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2006/0728china.htm
date retrieved: 12th May, 2007

My comment

The passage points out that China is seeking to develop its culture industries to transform it into a cultural heavyweight producing works of universal appeal. 2008 Olympic Games has become an opportunity for the country to showcase China’s wonderful and diverse culture. And Beijing intents to use cultural pursuits in boosting China’s image overseas. In this manner, culture account an important part in advancing the image of a harmonious and peace loving country. However, to go global, China must perfect its cultural policy and rebuild the image of Chinese culture. To help a worldwide spread of Chinese culture, China has embarked on a massive drive to popularize the Chinese language. Books and publishing are also being made a focus of China’s cultural offensive. Cultural expressions such as films, music and art have been seen as lucrative culture export items as well. China hopes that the country’s cultural market will be the next golden opportunity for foreign investors after the manufacturing industry.

As a common fact, Japanese culture and South Korean culture which partly originated from ancient Chinese culture have become the two most influential cultures in Asia. This is because they always understand the importance of culture, and are effective in preserving, enriching, advertising and publicizing their cultures. China, though rich in its culture due to a long history of more than 5000 years, is weak in preserving the Chinese culture, both material and non-material cultural heritages.
Somehow it seems that China is dependent on its history, on its ancient culture. It lives on its own fat. It is unarguable that China is rich in its culture. Chinese culture is rich in its contents and its diversity. However, many of these precious culture heritages are at stake. Moreover, it is also indubitable that there is a break in Chinese culture. Chinese live on the culture that passes down along the time; however, culture needs new blood to move, to develop. Culture needs creativity. New aspects are needed to be added to culture. What a pity, Chinese culture is lack of creativity, lack of new blood. Or at least, now it seems like this.
I say there is a break in Chinese culture, is because that there seems to be a jump in generation in inheriting Chinese culture. The old generation, particularly those suffered in the Culture Revolution treasure the Chinese culture, and are pained to see the extinction of the Chinese culture. Then comes a generation that adores money, looks down on traditions and literatus. The new generation, though a large group of them adore Japanese culture and South Korean culture, some of them, particularly some teenagers, university students, and some in there 20s, 30s, have begun to aware of the traditional culture. The new generation, though have the passion about Chinese culture, have a long road to go to learn more about the Chinese culture. Only when they are somewhat familiar with Chinese culture, they may be able to be creative and enrich and develop Chinese culture. And it is a pity that in the Chinese literatus, it is hard to find a young person that can be called a real writer. Nowadays, the popular books in China have become those meaningless romantic fictions.
In my opinion, the Japanese and Koreans live in their culture, aware of their culture and develop their culture during their daily lives contribute greatly to the success of Japanese and South Korean culture. Culture and daily living can not be separated as culture is originated from our daily lives and develops with the development of our daily lives. China should learn from Japan and South Korean. In fact, culture is all around us, we all are affected by it. China should make an effort to increase the awareness of its people, let them be able to identify different aspects of culture and discover the innovation in the culture in daily lives.

The article has also pointed out that “cultural expressions such as films, music and art can be lucrative export items just like any other product and wants to see China rivalling Japan and South Korea as pop-culture trend-setters and major cultural players in Asia.” I think China still has a long way down the road. China has produced many wonderful films. However, what a pity, those movies that are well known such as “Curse of the Golden Flower”, “the Promise” are the most rubbish films China has spent a lot of money to film. Those which really show Chinese culture and the situations of china are those only spent several million RMB to film and can not afford those wonderful advertising those commercial films have gone through. In my opinion, most people are watching those rubbish movies because of their idols and the vast advertisements. Most of those movies are meaningless. For “Curse of the Golden Flower”, I believe many people watched because they are the fans of Jay Chou. And the strange kind of clothing in the movie gives a wrong impression of ancient Chinese costumes. It is so funny when Yimou Zhang revealed that he initiated this clothing because in many French movies, the maids of honor wear some sexy clothing sort like this. I feel so confused that why he had filmed so many good movies such as The Story of Qiu Ju, and now, he cannot produce any meaningful stories anymore and depends on these non-Chinese costumes to catch the audience eyes. I prefer those which uses less money but worth to watch such as Yun Shui Yao.

Globalization has an indispensable impact on the Chinese. The influence of Japanese and South Korean culture is an effective example. Many Chinese, especially the teenagers, are crazy about the Japan or South Korean Wind. They dress according to Japanese or South Korean fashion, they wear Korean accessories all over their body, and their hair cut is Japanese style or Korean style. Teenagers love Japanese cartoons, girls love Korean love dramas.
The drawing styles of some Chinese cartoonists are affected by Japanese cartoons as well. This is usually showed in the big eyes and hair of the characters. One famous example is the new cartoon for “a dream of red mansions”. A dream of red mansions is a famous classic novel written in Qing Dynasty by Cao Xue Qin. As cartoons are favored by the teenagers, the cartoon for “a dream of red mansions” is published. The aim of this cartoon is said to resuscitate traditional Chinese culture and classical literature among the teenagers and hope to bring along the rise of Chinese cartoons. However, a series of queries have risen up after publishing of the cartoon.
The characters in the cartoon look nearly the same with the same kind of big eyes which are often seen in Japanese cartoons. Moreover, the characters seem very modern, the famous character Lin Daiyun who has been sickly and prone to illness since childhood with telling eyes is drawn with dyed hair. Qin Keqing is drawn with sun-top. Some people criticized that these is not “红楼” this is “青楼”which means bawdyhouse. Jia Xichun is also drawn with the “in” Korean hair cut.

compared to Hikaru Genji monogatari , "a dream of red mansions" in Japanese, Chinese cartoon has a long road to go.

pictures from www.sina.com.cn

done by: Cultural Expert: Lai Yunru :)