Globalization of Culture?

Location: MU's lib, M'sia.


I attended Julian's tutes today... The highlights of the day included seeing Julian blushing when trying to explain FGM to Bernie. Which, was hilarious... then he told us something about 'authencity'. to illustrate, he used Italian food to show us how far originality goes... then it hit me, spaghetti and risotto... FROM CHINA~

(though we all laughed when he mentioned about Marco Polo...)

Anyhoo, he asked us what we think about globalization of culture, which got me thinking.

I always have this theory about the more globalized (open) a country is to the world, the more the country struggle to maintain their national identity, and by doing so, they need to preserve & promote their own culture.

Words like acculturation, hybridization and self-differentiation/self-othering came up...

To me, globalization is an invitable process. It's sooner or later that we all become 'the same'. The homogenization of culture will eventually happen and we will all be the SAME RACE later on.. with the rate that people are doing each other these days... (owh, just in case I forgot to mention, I watched this movie, Idiocracy last week.. totally hilarious but when you come to think of it, it might not be unbelievable...)

So, even though people are struggling to maintain the authenticity of their culture, with the never-ending development, science tend to take the center stage while culture & traditions take the back seats.

WHY you say?

Maybe the culture will not be lost but instead, evolved into some other culture (self othering?). We still practice CNY, wear Chinese clothings, consume Chinese products though we don't wear em, eat em, or practice (ie: speak Chinese dialects) on the daily basis..

Instead, hibridization happened.

we wear our half cheong sam with Jeans now. Yu Sang with black pepper and those western chilli sauce are being produced... even Yu Sang is not frmo China (so I heard). It's something we malaysians come up with.

IMO, this, is phase 3 - 4.

1. different culture.
2. globalization.
3. glocalization (hibridization)
4. self othering/differentiation
... untimately, 5. homogenization.

It's just a transitional period. See how CCTV, Chinese's National TV's using English? Al Jazeera, no matter HOW hard they tried to emphasize the fact that they ARE different from the west, the format they used, the way they speak, the way the films/clips are edited and all, SO CNN.

Though homogenization of culture seemed more like Americanization from our point of time now, it's a sign showing that culture can spread through globalisation.

It's like a chemical reaction in a sense. 2 different element, reacted against one and another, then finally, they will resolve into some new elements after all the chaos and dramas.

It's really scary to think that we will all be THE SAME some day... wouldn't this world be soooooo boring?