Week 2 Post Leah feutz

 Week 2 Blog Post -Leah Feutz

Experiencing Globalization

            All five of the readings for this week helped me to understand better the nuances in understanding the differences in how globalization is experienced. In my blog post, I have chosen to pay particular attention to Watson’s piece on McDonald’s in Hong Kong because I found it to be especially interesting and affective in explaining the duality of these two entities. I think I also enjoyed it honestly because it describes an instance of mutual exchange between society and a big business, which appeals to my more idealistic side. I do recognize, however, that this relationship is not always (by any means) as positive as the one Watson is writing about. I did also enjoy reading the other four articles, and have commented on them after my discussion of Watson.

            I found James Watson’s piece to be a fascinating look at the discourse between Hong Kong consumers and the McDonald’s franchise, and how each has shaped the other in significant ways. I was struck by the overall positive and successful relationship between culture and corporation in this instance. Watson asserts strongly that “the ordinary people of Hong Kong have most assuredly not been stripped of their cultural heritage, nor have they become uncomprehending dupes of transnational corporations” (Watson 2006, 107). Instead, Hong Kong is “a major center for the production of transnational culture, not just a sinkhole for its consumption” (Watson 2006, 108). Therefore, Watson rejects the idea that the presence of American-born corporations in Hong Kong reflects “Americanization” (Watson 2006, 80).

            Watson outlines many of the ways that McDonalds and society in Hong Kong have changed as a result of their discourse between the two. To start off, he explains how “the idea of fast food was already well established among local consumers…time has always been money in Hong Kong” (Watson 2006, 80). Additionally, the fundamentals of the McDonald’s menu had been available in Hong Kong for about 20 years before the restaurant first opened its doors, meaning that familiarity with that type of food had already been fostered (Watson 2006, 81). Society in Hong Kong at the time of McDonald’s “mid-1970’s entry” was experiencing an economic boom, and so its takeoff “paralleled the rise of a new class of highly educated, affluent consumers” who wanted to “eat out more often than their parents…[which] created a huge demand for fast, convenient food…” (Watson 2006, 82). I find this to be essential in understanding how the presence of McDonald’s in Hong Kong does not represent an intrusion of a foreign business into an unwelcoming environment, but that the setting of Hong Kong at the time, coupled with McDonald’s “conservative approach” to development of the franchise facilitated positive exchange between the two (Watson 2006, 85).

            McDonald’s has been able to become a “local institution in the sense that it has blended into the urban landscape”, made possible by the fact that the relationship between culture and corporation has predominantly positive (Watson 2006, 89). Criticisms of McDonald’s such as their alleged abuse of the environment and their importation of “American-style ‘junk culture’” have popped up from time to time (Watson 2006, 99). However, these criticisms cannot compete with an overwhelmingly positive perception of McDonalds, partially owing to clever marketing on the part of the corporation (Watson 2006, 99). The result of mutual influence is evident on both sides. McDonald’s has played a huge role in influencing change in dietary preferences, standards of cleanliness, the view of birthdays, and consumer discipline in the implementation of the queue (Watson 2006). On the other side, the McDonald’s business formula has adapted to fit cultural expectations of what good service looks like, as well as other “’localizing’ adaptations” in consumer expectations, such as different eating times and cleaners to bus customer’s trays (Watson 2006, 92).

            I found Watson’s discussion of children in Hong Kong to be the most fascinating. He notes how, “in effect, [McDonald’s] started a revolution by making it possible for even the youngest consumers to choose their own food” (Watson 2006, 100). This is a departure from traditional roles for children, and also marks a significant change in the “balance of domestic power” (Watson 2006, 102). “Intergenerational distress” is occurring within the vital relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren, because children who would usually have had to “accommodate to the proclivities of their elders” are now becoming more assertive of their preference for fast food (Watson 2006, 101). McDonald’s is also seen as a place of refuge and freedom, (an “informal youth center”), where young people gather out of the rigid confines of school and the home (Watson 2006, 105). While Watson explains how lingering is discouraged in the traditional model of fast food operations, McDonald’s in Hong Kong has capitalized on youth perceptions of the chain as “commercial space temporarily transformed into private space” (Watson 2006, 106). I think this has greatly influenced McDonald’s as a part of the consciousness of society in Hong Kong. It is so engrained in the lives of the consumers as something that they have “made their own”, and therefore fails to be a symbol of imperialism and cultural threat (Watson 2006, 107).

            The discourse of globalization changes in Koh’s piece concerning “The Anxieties of Globalization for Singapore”. I found it interesting that Watson doesn’t really describe the experience of McDonald’s in Hong Kong as “globalization”, and that instead it is an occurrence reflecting mutual influence in a place where young people in particular are “fully conversant in transnational idioms” (Watson 2006, 80). On the other hand, globalization is a “problem-space” in Singapore, rife with anxieties about the “perilous influence of the ‘West’” and its ability “to destabilize [Singapore’s] national identity, values, and ethos” (Koh 2008, 193). In this case, the government uses its “ideological state apparatus” to remedy what it sees as a “lack of national identity among Singaporean youths”, in particular using National Education (Koh 2008, 194). Koh explains that there is a fundamental paradox in trying to manage globalization through “identity politics” and “fixing’ a territorial-bound, local, national identity” (Koh 2008, 194). The reality of a new “global youth culture and new communication technologies” means that there is almost unlimited potential for young people to assert identities on their own terms, outside the control of efforts of identity implementation (Koh 2008, 194). I think this contradiction is fascinating, and that it sheds light on the different priorities people have when faced with understanding how they experience globalization. While some people in power may attempt to manage globalization and counter it with their own (somewhat forced) re-assertions of identity, this can be incongruent to the way young people see themselves as emerging individuals. Similarly, Sengupta’s New York Times article sheds light on the larger issue of “moral policing and its political repercussions”, as well as the way that young Indian women in particular are experiencing limits on their freedom (Sengupta 2009, 1). While this is a more overt instance of identity governance than that in Singapore, it is a sign of a larger trend of the perceived threat of globalization to traditional power and cultural dynamics. On the other end of the spectrum, Bestor’s article “How Sushi Went Global” explains the occurrence of an instance of globalized “cultural capital” (Bestor 2000, 4). In this case, “globalization doesn’t necessarily homogenize cultural differences nor erase the salience of cultural labels. Quite the contrary, it grows the franchise. In the global economy of consumption, the brand equity of sushi as Japanese cultural property adds to the cachet of both the country and the cuisine” (Bestor 2004, 3). I thought this was an important look at yet another way that globalization is experienced, and that there is a multitude of ways that it plays out in different contexts. It is not necessarily something that is good or bad, positive or negative, and instead globalization encompasses a range of different responses and realities, all of which are complicated by particular context.  

            Finally, I wanted to comment specifically on the part of “Strategic Inauthenticity” which describes criticisms N’Dour faced as he became more famous. People attacked the evolution of his sound from “a conscious attempt to re-Africanize Senegalese music” as being “too slick, too commercial, too western” (Taylor 1997, 134).  A prominent world music commentator asserted that N’Dour’s music was “at its most spectacular…over the rhythyms of his native country, in his native language, over his native rhythms” (Taylor 1997, 135). As the author asserts, this is an example of westerners using the idea of “nativism” against anyone who deviates from our narrow expectations of what authenticity really means. To think that authenticity should be equated with resistance to or complete disregard for outside influences is naïve. As N’Dour explains, his fame allowed him to travel around the world, and therefore exposed him to new influences. Like any growing artist, this would factor into how his sound evolved and changed over his career. I find that often, the western discourse on globalization champions the increased ability for people to connect and for innovation to occur across national boarders, but at the same time cuts down those who fail to fit our outdated and arrogant picture of how they should behave. This is just one of the ways that I see experiencing globalization as a struggle on many fronts, and that the balance of priorities, economics, morality, culture, identity, and so many other elements of our lives is challenged when confronted with figuring out how, if, when, etc, we fit into the globalized world.