Rachel Becker
February 6, 2012
Response #2
James
L. Watson (2006) discusses how McDonald’s has successfully managed to mold
itself into the culture of Hong Kong.
First they had to figure out how to not be off-putting; they made the
name something that could be Americanized and kitschy so they could draw
customers looking for something different.
It turned out to be an excellent time for this move in Hong Kong because
a younger generation was coming of age.
Watson (2006) says, “McDonald’s takeoff thus paralleled the rise of a
new class of highly educated, affluent customers who thrive in Hong Kong’s ever
changing urban environment – one of the most stressful in the world. These new consumers eat out more often than
their parents and have created a demand for fast, convenient foods of all
types” (p. 82). It is possible than
these people are influencing the behavior of younger children or raising
children of their own with more vocal opinions now. Regardless, there is now a trend of children
with authority that goes against the traditional culture of Hong Kong.
Watson (2006)
details a clash that he sees occurring between people of different generations
– they don’t want the same things anymore (if they ever did) and they
disapprove of any other choice. One of
my aunts who lives in Washington Heights, a largely Spanish speaking
neighborhood in New York City, once told me that she that conglomerates like
Starbucks employ sociologists who help to decide when the exact right time to
move into a new neighborhood with a new store would be. They would take into account how gentrified a
neighborhood had become or if the youth were ready for a change. In any event, by luck or by careful
calculation, that is clearly what has happened to McDonald’s here. This was also an issue in Somini Sengupta’s
(2009) article about bar attacks against young women in India. There is resistance to the idea of these
women being allowed to drink in an Americanized bar and one extremist group
took action. While the younger
generation is horrified and wants to defend themselves, the older generation
does not want a scene. Sengupta (2009)
says this demonstrates, “The ‘schizophrenic’ attitude of Indian women –
alternating between being assertive and subservient and then judging others for
tilting one way or the other” (p. 3).
There is a disconnect here about what globalization and Westernization
mean for original cultures. The older
generation perceives a threat and that is perhaps fair.
I’m
also interested in the repercussions of introducing food like McDonald’s and
Coca Cola to other countries because, as we know, it is terrible for us. We in America don’t think of McDonald’s as
setting a standard for cleanliness or for high food quality. Where it is seen as a treat for a child or a
snack in Hong Kong, people without many other options often rely on McDonald’s
for cheap meals here. What does it mean
if we are selling something that is Americanized and trendy, but terrible for
you, to other countries? In addition,
the introduction of McDonald’s moves countries further and further away from
their own economy and resources and into global standardization through
shipping food over. Surely we are
setting a poor example. Bestor (2000)
adds to this when he writes about the transnational trade of Bluefin tuna. Massive fish are being caught on the New England
coast where they are bid on and then shipped (with exorbitant fees) to Tokyo. Prior to this boom in trade, “Commercial
fishers, if they caught Bluefin at all, sold them for cat food when they could
and trucked them to town dumps when they couldn’t. Japanese buyers changed all of that” (Bestor
2000; p. 3). This fish has only gotten
its value from other cultures and the competition and financial reward that
they create. In creating these dependent
economic systems, we build ourselves up for a much harder fall. I’m not saying that there are not advantages
to the kinds of access that these chains allow, but it does seem risky. The local economy can be completely
overlooked and there are certainly environmental factors as well. The symbolism of this trade being based in
the ocean should not be overlooked. In
the ocean, there are no solid boundaries like the ones that we construct and
then enforce for countries. It should be
a communal space.
Timothy
D. Taylor (1997) discusses the blending of traditional African music with a
worldwide audience. Youssou N’Dour is a
Kenyan artist who in many ways is continuing the oral history of his culture,
but at the same time he is meeting some mainstream success. Taylor (1997) builds off of Edward Said’s
point that, “culture is constructed as organically inherent and individuals and
groups…Any analytical value is just about gone; culture has entered everyday
language, but as nothing other than a term that supplants race or blood or ethnicity
as an essentialized marker of racial-ethnic difference” (p. 126). When we say that something is cultural, we
mean that it is not like us. I think
that Americans are always looking for culture and for something exciting, like
sushi or music, which can be added into what we would call our culture. We do, after all, consider ourselves a
melting pot. It is an important
distinction that artists who are not from English speaking countries are
labeled world musicians, even if they often record in English. On the other hand, Taylor (1997) lists artists
such as Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Tracy Chapman
as individuals who had worked with N’Dour.
These are all people that would consider themselves worldly, but they
are not placed into the world music outsider category. They have the ability to choose where they
would like to be and it is not a question of losing their character or culture
when they make decisions for their music careers.
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