Read the following article about globalization and write a two to three- page paper explaining your thoughts and what you learned. Your paper should cover the following points: 1. What is globalizatio

Read the following article about globalization and write a two to three-page paper explaining your thoughts and what you learned. Your papershould cover the following points:1. What is globalization?2. What are the central points of each section?3. What do you think about globalization? (You can relate it toreal world events if you want)National Geographic: “Globalization”www.nationalgeographic.comBy Erla ZwingleSection I:“Globalization”—lots of people seem to think it means that the world is turning intosome consumer colony of America. Coke, CNN, McDonald’s, Levi’s, Nikes—if theyhaven’t taken over the world yet, the feeling goes, they will soon. (Odd: Japan is theworld’s second largest economy, and yet I’ve never heard of anyone who buys Sony oreats sushi believing that it’s part of some plot to turn the world into Japan.)But regardless of whether you’re buying or selling, in the past 20 years much of theworld’s economy has become increasingly integrated and foreign direct investmenthas grown three times as fast as total domestic investment. From 1980 to 1995 the valueof trade worldwide rose dramatically, with the total value of world exports estimated atU.S. $5.1 trillion in 1995, up from U.S. $2 trillion in 1980.Yet the globalization phenomenon is more than the mere transfer of goods, the fact that,for instance, you can buy French mineral water and Danish beer in the Shanghai airportor eat Japanese ramen out of your suburban microwave. It’s the advent of cheap andubiquitous information technologies that is dissolving our sense of boundaries. Moreand more television channels and the Internet have contributed to what expert DanielYergin calls a “woven world.”When we talk about “globality” (a new buzzword), we’re trying to define a world inwhich cultures meet and, rather than fight, they blend. As observer Frederick Tipsonnotes, “More like a thin but sticky coating than a powerful acid, this cosmopolitan cultureof communications networks and the information media seems to overlay rather thansupplant the cultures it interacts with.” Because when cultures receive outsideinfluences, they ignore some and adopt others, and then almost immediately start totransform them.That’s how you end up listening to something called “bhangra pop” in India, to take anexample at random: sounds like Jamaican reggae played on traditional Indian instruments,then amplified. “As things get more global,” commented Norman Klein, acommunications professor in Los Angeles, “they’re actually becoming morelocalized.”Section III went to China, India, and Los Angeles to discover what globalization feels like in threeof the most diverse places on Earth. Almost immediately I found that the ideas I startedout with turned out to be too small, too old, or just plain wrong.For the past year and a half in Shanghai, for example, Chinese children have beentuning in to that American children’s classic TV show Sesame Street. But here it’scalled Zhima Jie, and when you look closer, it’s not simply the American show. Theshow’s team of actors and educators has been collaborating to produce a program thatpromotes Chinese, rather than American, values. The kids are loving it.“The Chinese want an environment that’s relaxed and fun that their children can belearning in,” senior producer Cooper Wright told me on the phone from New York.“They think they have enough formal settings for learning already. But they wanted it toinclude a lot of their ancient culture. The parents get home late, they all work, and theydon’t have time to teach their children this, so they feel the show will help with that.”Da Niao, Big Bird’s Chinese cousin, is played here by a gentle young man who stillworks as a truck mechanic. The other characters are all Chinese: a lively three-year-old red monster called Little Plum; a furry blue pig, a kindly grandfather, a very sweetmother, and a little boy, An An, who is so funny and cute and smart that when I met himI could scarcely believe how perfect he was for the part.This group does many of the usual Sesame Street activities—teaching numbers, forinstance—but instead of the alphabet they teach the origin and meaning of Chinesecharacters. They explain the history and customs of certain festivals. They describecertain ancient art forms. And they also teach sharing and cooperation.Why does this matter? Because the one-child policy has produced millions of onlychildren who don’t live in the large families that once fostered such behaviors. ManyChinese freely admit that a lot of these kids, with two sets of grandparents and twoparents who work, are pretty spoiled. In fact, they’re often called Little Emperors andEmpresses. You can imagine.“We want to concentrate on reflecting Chinese families,” explained Professor Li JiMei, who designed part of the show’s curriculum, “such as what children could do toshow their respect for the family. Another important part of the program is to makechildren realize how much their parents do for their well-being. In reflecting Chinesesociety,” she concluded, “we reflect how people should help each other and how to sharethe joy in sharing.”I asked Professor Li if she thought there was much difference between Chinese andAmerican children. “I think American children are more active,” she replied immediately.“They’re freer in expressing themselves, take the initiative more, and they’re moreindependent. When Chinese babies fall on the ground, they lie there and expect theirparents to pick them up.” But Ye Chao, the show’s producer in Shanghai, notes, “I thinkthe difference today between children in Chinese cities and rural areas is far bigger thanbetween American and Chinese children.”Cooper Wright, the senior producer in New York, believes American children couldstand to gain from some of the material in the Chinese show. “I think we couldbenefit a lot from the aesthetics,” she said. “And the respect for elders. I think some ofthe segments with the grandfather are wonderful, and I’d hope they could influence ourshows.”By now, 19 countries around the world are producing their own versions of SesameStreet, using television to interpret their unique cultures. It seems to be working. DoesBig Bird feel he’s promoting America to his tiny viewers? “I don’t think so,” Ye Chaosaid. “We just borrowed an American box and put Chinese content into it.”Section IIIMcDonald’s may be the most notorious name in the whole complex business ofAmerican culture going abroad. There are approximately 24,500 McDonald’srestaurants in over 115 countries; a new McDonald’s opens somewhere in the worldevery six hours. Like Coke, though, it’s easy to denigrate as the symbol of the crass,unhealthy, commercial side of American culture. Some Japanese critics have blamedsugar-laden junk food for juvenile crime.American scholar Benjamin Barber has gone even farther, summing up everyone’s fearsof cultural homogenization in the simple but oddly distressing term, “McWorld.”But McDonald’s has actually been remarkably responsive to the local cultures; they offerayran (a popular chilled yogurt drink) in Turkey; McLaks (a grilled salmonsandwich) in Norway, and teriyaki burgers in Japan. In New Delhi, India, whereHindus shun beef and Muslims refuse pork, the burgers are made of mutton and calledMaharaja Macs.And if you’re vegetarian, as many strict Hindus are, even better: There’s not only theMcAloo Tikki burger, a spicy vegetarian patty made of potatoes and peas, but they evenfigured out how to make a vegetarian mayonnaise that’s really pretty good, and doing itwithout eggs is no small feat.I had lunch in one of the eight McDonald’s in New Delhi; first mariachi music, then adisco version of the theme from Titanic blared from the ceiling. “Cooking lamb is verydifferent from beef,” the manager, Sandip Maithal, told me. “The fat percentage is verydifferent. And for the vegetarians, we have two separate tracks of preparation. Workerswith green aprons handle only vegetarian food, while those with black aprons handlenonvegetarian food.“We even separated the two menus—being Indian, we had a good understanding thatvegetarians wouldn’t want to have to read about meat dishes.” What this has meant is thatmixed groups of people, with drastically different tastes and customs, have finallyfound a place where they can all eat together. Is this an American idea? Does it matter?Pamela Singh, my interpreter, was impressed. It was her first time in an IndianMcDonald’s, and she didn’t mince words. “I’d eat here again,” she said. “It’s quick, it’sclean, it’s cheap, and it’s better than those horrible oily places—you won’t get sick. If alocal company did what McDonald’s does, they’d do just as well. But I haven’t seenanywhere this concern for the level of cleanliness. I applaud these people.”I did some reading up on McDonald’s around the world, and I found that while itundeniably represents change, it’s usually positive. Take bathrooms. Till McDonald’sarrived, customers of many Asian restaurants were resigned to bathrooms that werehorrifying. Now they’re demanding better. (I approached one mother in a ShanghaiMcDonald’s whose toddler was gnawing french fries. Did she think the food was good?“No,” she replied. So why did she come here? “Because it’s clean,” she said.)Women in traditional cultures like to meet at McDonald’s because there’s no alcoholserved, and they see it as a safe, socially acceptable place for a woman alone to go.And, far from being a place where you eat and run, many people, from the elderly toteenagers, see it as a spot where they can linger. In cities where space is at a premium,like Hong Kong, teenagers like it because it’s somewhere outside their often crampedapartments where they can meet their friends—sometimes they even do their homeworkthere.But the fact that the staff are all local people means that the restaurant, though obviouslyforeign, isn’t instantly perceived as being American. In New Delhi, as in Brazil or Manila,you may well buy your burger from the kid down the street who speaks the local dialect.“People call us multinational. I like to call us multilocal,” commented JamesCantalupo, president and CEO of McDonald’s International.Section IV“Culture,” anthropologist James Watson has commented, “is not something that peopleinherit as an undifferentiated bloc of knowledge from their ancestors. Culture is a set ofideas, reactions, and expectations that is constantly changing as people and groupsthemselves change.”