culture

SO last night i was talking on the phone with my friend who lives in Italy (he was an exchange student last year, that’s how i got to know him) and we got on the topic of education. At this, he was quick to remind me how last year not only did he know more about the American presidents than i did, but also more about world cultures in general. some of this was from experience, but it got me thinking alot about the education system in the states. in other countries, students are taught about the rest of the world, given in apparently great detail. Many start to learn another language at a young age, elementary schoo as opposed to high school. Here in the US, we are taught a very westernized view of everything, and barely brush on other cultures and countries. i’m absolutely fasinated with other cultures and religions, so i took my own time out to learn about them. when i reached senior year and we were required to take a class in world design, i knew more than my teacher did about other religions and cultures. hardly any of the other students really saw relevance for the course, they thought it was a little redundant to take since they weren’t going to ever see those countries. Americans seem to have the lack of adventure. Very few ever travel somewhere more unorthodox than a Carribean cruise. Maybe that’s the difference, Europe’s countries are so close to each other, they can easily see a totally different culture with a short drive. They aren’t quite as isolated as the US is. We have Canada, and Mexico, and the most interest taken in either seems to be fishing and hunting in Canada or Cancun. maybe children need to start learning about other cultures and appreciation for them at a younger age, might promote for a broader outlook on things.

library thing

For my expert study, I want to do the effects globalization has on cultures.

Redefining Culture : Perspectives Across the Discipline. ed. John R. Baldwin. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2006.
1. Secondary, scholarly, it has a mix of fact and opinion.
2. This book gives many different persectives, but the main idea behind all of them are that cultures are one of the most important factors when it comes to dealing with society and it’s problems.

tourism

Ah, the tourism industry. For years land have been “privatized” for the tourist industry. over the last decades, private beaches, forests, and mountain areas for the construction of hotels, resorts, golf course, etc. The water from public reservoirs taken to fill hotel pools and water the golf courses has gone on for years as well. Recently, however, people’s land and resources are being stolen to make this tourist areas. For example, many natural parks are being changed so they bring more tourists, which mean more money. On the negative side, more people mean more litter, pollution, and destruction to the park, making a bit of an oxy-moron. Corporates are taking over some of these tourist spots in order to make more money. Remember the picture of the Coke can on the Great Wall of China? Or when you go camping, and the first thing you see at the campground is a bunch of Pepsi soda machines next to a vending machine filled with junk food?

Tourism is a major source of income for many countries and people. A lot of people working for the tourist industry put on a fake idea of what the natives of that area are supposed to be like, certainly helping that to create that stereotype. My favorite is when I was in Egypt, and went to visit the pyramids. It’s surrounded by people, usually students, selling tourists little Egyptian trinkets. “Cultural” things and “exotic” objects, like scarab beads and those sheets that the men supposedly wear on their head. For the sake of the tourists, they all act to their “culture” and such, camel rides, outfits, all of that. I talked to one of the students, and after a while he finally relaxed, and once he found out I was from America, the topic switched to the TV shows, proving the spread of cultures. Many Egyptians have picked up the American culture from movies and TV, and there is a lot of Italian influence there when it comes to fashion. Due to globalization and the tourist industry, the stereotypical image has truly disappeared at some of these places.

war

ok, had dial-up for awhile at home, so posting was basically out of question.

One of the questions from the list of topics was how war fit into the picture of globalization. This topic actually affects me directly, so i’ve decided to talk a little about it. For the last 20 odd some years, my dad works for a company, previously Olin and Primax, now General Dynamics. Basically, they make weapons, his branch makes tank artillery. As long as i can remember, he has always been traveling to other countries for his latest projects, whether it be Taiwan, Egypt, Sweden, or the latest, South Africa. In Taiwan and Egypt, general dynamics were building a factory there for our artillery to be made. right now the project he is involved with consists of recieving South Africa’s plans of their latest technology in weapons. They are actually one of the leading countries in advanced weapons, about five to ten years ahead of us. If the US had no need for the technology from South Africa, my dad would have a bit of a problem.

There are other ways war affects globalization. For example, the economy. War can either improve or kill the economy. The defense budget is almost automatically boosted for war, and if the rest of the budgets cannot cope with their losses, the rest of the economy is going to end up in trouble. Another factor that is usually forgetten as well, is the culture. Most of America’s culture reached these other countries when the soldiers ended up in another country, bringing with them ideas and taking some back to the States. War has always had a tendency to either bring countries together or tear them apart. The UN wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for WW2. China ceases their civil war to combine forces during Mao to fight off the Japanese. The fall of the Soviet Union helped to create the globalized world we have today. War and globablizaton go hand in hand.

happy people

on tuesday, one of the discussions was wether the people in the third world countries were happy or not, that kinda stuff. i couldn’t really talk, i was still getting over being sick and my throat was swollen, so here’s what i think about that. i’ve been to a developing country, egypt, and not just as a tourist. my dad was living there, so he was friends with many people that were considered middle class there, although in the u.s. they would be pretty poor. i got to go to their homes and have dinner and get to know some of these people. and yes, they are happy. because they are much poorer, they have a much higher value for life and a greater appreciation for family and friends. the only thing they seemed to regret is that egypt did not have baseball like the u.s. did. they know what the rest of the world has, but are content with what they have.

wal-mart

wal-mart, one of the biggest contributors to globalization. was found in the news again. on msnbc, i found an article about wal-mart, and how wal-mart is going to attempt to create a more flexiable work force and cut back wages by using more part-timers and more night and weekend staff. not a very large article, but it had a lot of feedback. surprise, surprise, not many people are liking this change. after reading 5 of the 30 some pages of feedback, i had found some intelligent ones(i even found one about friedman). these employees are not being treated well, full time or part time. there are complaints of their benefits and hours being cut. although cutting back wages helps wal-mart, it certainly does not help the employees, many of which depend on their job for their families. this change works well for wal-mart’s economy, but it widens the poor-rich gap, making more people rely on welfare programs. however, if wal-mart does not do something like cut back wages, the prices of the product must go up. the big question is, which one is more important, the well-being of the employees or wal-mart’s ability to provide the country with cheap goods. personally, i feel it is more important to keep the better wages. if i work at wal-mart i want to be able to afford to shop there as well. wal-mart has always been good about hiring people, the retirees and such, but providing someone with a minimum wage job for part time is not enough to get by on.