Maggie Nelsen
2/8/12
Weekly Response 2

Through my interpretation of this week’s readings a few different themes resonated with me the most. I think maybe the biggest theme is how globalization affects culture. Many countries across the globe all seem to be a little shaken up once western customs and American products start infiltrating their culture. Some nations embrace this process while others have some reservations or trepidations about how it might change their own culture and society. But in this situation a key sector of society comes into play—everywhere in the world—youth. Through these articles (MacDonald’s in Hong Kong and Disciplining Generation M in particular) it becomes apparent that youth are a huge driving force behind globalization, modernity, and cultural integration. In Singapore, elders and politicians find this a problem; they are deeply concerned because the youth generation grew up in a post-independence Singapore, and therefore don’t have any appreciation for their nation’s history or strife. An identity crisis of sorts is the result; I imagine this is a scenario not new to other parts of the world. In a world where globalization and westernization are ever encroaching on national borders and cultural ways of life, I think an admirable way to handle it would be to model after Hong Kong.

               

                The article on MacDonald’s chain spreading into Hong Kong offered a really interesting chronological narrative on how MacDonald’s gained “acceptance” into Hong Kong culture. It spoke to the power of the youth, both as economically profitable and as forgers of a new culture. MacDonald’s struggled to get its Chinese customers to understand the American culture/way of doing things surrounding a fast food chain. For instance, at first the Chinese treated MacDonald’s food items as snacks rather than meals; the chains had trouble getting customers to bus their own trays and trash after they were done, or not to linger too long at tables. Customers were also pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of bathrooms designated specifically for the public (not the public and employees). Therefore, MacDonald’s became a reliable place to use a nice restroom and consequently created a consumer expectation at other MacDonald’s competitors. Each of these examples illustrates significant cultural disconnects which MacDonald’s corporate had never anticipated or considered when extending their chain in Hong Kong. While MacDonald’s made the right moves in trying to assimilate their product (carefully translating their name into the appropriate Cantonese equivalent, showing instructional videos about how to clean up after yourself, etc.) it was the young, school-aged Chinese who really decided and created the uniquely Hong Konger culture surrounding MacDonald’s. The youth generation also taught their elders how to treat MacDonald’s as a food group and so forth. I think the heartwarming, and hopeful take-away from this occurence is that although Westernization did come into Hong Kong looking for a new market, the Hong Kongers made it their own, giving the MacDonald’s chains a distinctively Hong Konger culture that couldn’t be found at a MacDonald’s anywhere else in the world. I think it is also a promising sign that the management of MacDonald’s development in Hong Kong didn’t force the American MacDonald’s customs on their Hong Kong chains, but accommodated to the existing culture, and was culturally sensitive to things like choosing an appropriate homonym for translating MacDonald’s and allowing customers to linger at tables. MacDonald’s went into this endeavor expecting Hong Kongers to learn the American culture surrounding MacDonald’s, and instead Hong Kongers made it their own.

                Youth, and more specifically gender, came into play in the short article on attacks on women at a Manglore, India bar. A few young college women were attacked for engaging in an activity highly disapproved of by some—drinking and dancing at a bar. The organization responsible for the attacks, Sri Ram Sena, believe women participating in the nightlife scene are sacrilegious and an affront to Hindu values and principles.  Gender-based violence against women and globalization have held an intrinsic connection over the years; genital mutilation and brothels are typically the related topics which receive the most attention in classrooms and the media. However this story is reporting on a relatively mild incident. But the root of this incident has much deeper implications: many worry Hindu and Indian culture is being violated and abandoned for more modern ways of viewing women and society. Again, youth culture is threatening old tradition and societal norms, and some are resisting the globalization—or sometimes westernization—phenomenon rippling across the world. I am inclined to differentiate between progressive women and women trying to be western. For the sake of the argument, I will say in general, in the affluent and powerful parts of the world women are equal to men. The world is evolving, and in the modern world women are rising to do the same things and be perceived the same way as men. I don’t think it would be fair to say we are pushing a western agenda on countries where women aren’t perceived—or treated—equal to men; this is the reality of the modern world. As a westerner I can only speak to Indian culture to a limited extent, but like most western women it is our natural tendency to outcry over blatant gender discrimination and abuse in other sects of the world. But, at the same time one cannot ignore age-old customs and values embedded in society. I have every respect for other people’s practices and cultural values, and equality for women was not universal for a long time, but it is evolving to be, in a modern world it is a right. So I don’t think women in India are “trying to ape the west”.

                The other two articles wrangled with the connection between westernization and globalization through food and music. It’s sad how the globalization of both industries is so strongly linked with profitability. Sushi found a distinctly American niche in the States, transforming the cuisine into something unrecognizable to any native Japanese—in order to be acceptable to the American palate and therefore profitable. The music coming from Senegal and other countries in Africa became increasingly infused with sounds from the West: “these musicians are moderns who face constant pressure from westerners to remain musically and otherwise premodern—that is, culturally “natural”—because of racism and western demands for authenticity”. This is because westerners are running on the assumption—often unconsciously—that American culture is the “default” culture. Therefore, anything foreign is natural and “authentic”, and if it is infused with anything western it is decidedly not original or indigenous. This article about two musicians struggling to create their own music, but wanting to play creatively with other sounds from other cultures (namely the West) reminded me of another such predicament from the TV show, Top Chef. A native Vietnamese contestant chef was a highly trained, renowned French chef. However, judges on the show continually asked him why none of his dishes had any “authenticity”, passion, home-style inspiration or soul. Every time he pleaded ‘I am a French chef, that is my passion and where my skills lie’ the judges would not understand or accept his perfect entrees because they lacked his Vietnamese culture. Clearly the Western world has trouble accepting perceived “foreigners” from producing something other than their own culture. But when it comes to the west importing something from the East, it is totally botched into something inauthentic and distinctly reconfigured for western consumption, as in the case with sushi. This can be potentially dangerous phenomenon because westerners of the ignorant type, might indeed take California rolls as true Japanese cuisine, when in fact it is not. From a phenomenon like this people can form ideas and stereotypes about another culture that are based on something that is not actually representative of that culture. (Hence, sushi being dubbed “exotic” and “sophisticated” among Americans) This is the problem with globalization, cultural integration or cultural “borrowing”.