My final paper
12/11/2011
ENG 191
Globalization means the relationship between nation and nation is getting closer. In other words, the entire world is becoming a big family. Hundreds years ago, Globalization started since the new land and ship were found. People not only started their new lives in the new land but also colonized many underdeveloped countries. During the period, globalization was the tool of powerful nations, they tried to gain more and pay less from these poor countries. In some way, colonization had positive influence in the global communication. I personally think the United States is the outcome of globalization, because the nation is based on immigration. After colonization, more and more business communications, intercultural communications and interpersonal communications bring the world a new choice. Many international trades can be processed instantly by the internet; many electrical technologies can benefit other countries. It is impossible for any nation to have such rapid development without globalization. As a result of globalization, people get know each other better than the past. However, as the two sides of a coin, globalization also brings some negative effects. According to my study, many traditional things such thinking, lifestyle and festivals are turning into internationalization. So we can see that globalization influence people’s life in both good ways and bad ways. In the rest of the paper, I will analyze the effect of globalization in three different categories: political level, economic level, cultural level.
The effect of globalization on the U.S. is less than the rest of the world. “As a process of the world becoming increasingly interconnected--and also as one in which values are becoming more oriented to a global context, and international institutions are playing a more central role.”(1) By political factor, the 20th century was variety, because 20th was the confused agitate of globalization, after the second world war, America was a big winner, in order to manage the global trade and economic, the American and British government created GATT, IMF and the world bank. Then during the cold war, the proletariat and capitalist class were fighting each other, the world also was divided into two major camps, the United States and Soviet Union. After the cold war, the political divergence gradually disappeared, the leaders of countries realized that develop was the most important thing. For America, I think the most important effect is that the change of their attitudes for Globalization. America was based on immigration, people who came here to pursue their American dreams, because the government encouraged the citizen to develop their own company, this was performance of Globalization as well. However, Globalization also came up with some negative effects; “An October 2005 poll by the German Marshall Fund simply asked whether respondents have a favorable or unfavorable view of globalization. A plurality of 46% said they had a favorable view, while 36% said they had an unfavorable view. It is worth noting though that those who had a very unfavorable view (15%) were significantly greater than those who had a very favorable view (7%).”(1) Anyway, American people have many views about globalization. In my opinion, American’s value include three important thoughts: human right, equally competition chance and hard work, in other word, the reason for American dislike globalization is very simple, globalization is good for developing countries’ growth, the job opportunity will be transferred to the other countries, so more and more American people are losing their jobs. American citizen could purchase the cheaper goods in the store; but they can’t evade the pressure of competition from the cheap labor countries. In addition, America regards itself as an international polices, once some evil force appears somewhere in the world, The U.S army would try to defeat them in order to keep the world peace, thus American government spends a great amount of money on it every year, it is decreasing America’s power, too. For cultural section, with strong cultural basis from Europe, America has many European styles of foods and sports. Meanwhile, Asian culture is being a part of American life, we can watch many Japanese cartoons on TV, and we can see Japanese brand cars and Chinese restaurant everywhere in American cities as well. As many Asian immigrants come to the U.S, American people more understand and accept Asian culture. America is the strongest country in the world, its policies and culture often affect other nations and people, however with the economic depression, and this effect is getting weaker.
As compare to America, The effect of globalization further impacts Japan than America. The break point of Japan was Black Ships Event, American captain Perry forced Tokugawa government to open the port for international trade, and it could be regarded as the beginning of globalization for Japan. As the western culture came into Japan, more and more Japanese thinkers realized that old policies couldn’t keep Japan strong, then Meiji restoration outbreak and modernized Japan. After the World War II, Japan was really poor; the Japanese government got help from America and learned a lot new policies and systems from western world. These modes also bring fashion western thinking to Japan. So far, Japan's auto-mobile industry and electronic industry are very advanced, the electronic brand Sony and car brand Nissan are among the world. With the development of the globalization, western liberal democracy challenges Japanese traditional value. In the past, Japanese was loyal to the the Mikado -- the emperor of Japan. Nowadays, the Japanese focus more on economic development and modern education. They understand that some traditional thing cannot improve the quality of their lives. I interviewed three Japanese students this semester, all the feeling I got from them was that Japan changed. These changes took place everywhere in Japan. For political part, Japanese political system is parliament system; Japanese people can select the government they like in order to manage the country. In Japan, two of the most powerful parties are Democratic Party and Liberal Democratic Party. Now Democratic Party takes power in Japan. The term for government is two or three years. The Mikado is no more important as before, as a result of young Japanese more advocate freedom, from asceticism to material desires and sexual consciousness of liberation. The values of family, men were host of the house in the past, he had to do job for his family, and women just were responsible for house work. Women did not have to worry about making money. The most important job of a woman was to be a good housewife. So, the role between men and women was different. Men had more right than women in old national system. However, Japanese women have more options, under liberal egalitarianism. Women gain more rights than before, so a lot of women choose to keep working after marriage, housewife is getting fewer and fewer. On the one hand, the marriage age is being higher; people used to get marry when they were young. Nowadays, young people pay more attention on their work, most of them wouldn’t spend too much time in love, so most people get marry nearly thirty years old currently. On the other hand, the number of children of each family has been decreasing; parents can’t take care of many children, especially after housewife is being fewer. So, the most effect from globalization is changing people’s life style. For the Japanese traditional things such as sumo and kabuki which is very unattractive to youth. American movies and video games are popular among young people; it is a challenge to traditional stuff. Overall, there is one thing which is never changed in Japanese culture, be polite. The Japanese parents always teach their kids to be polite. I think this is fairly common tradition. Japanese electric and car production are successful worldwide, which make the Japanese economic growth fast. But, strongly life stress causes the highest suicide rates in the world. This is a major problem to Japanese social system. Nevertheless, Japanese people are unity; they believe social stability is the most important thing.
China is an ancient country but still relatively young for the U.S and Japan on modern stage, because Chinese government open the market and port for public at 1978. We call the policy “Reform and Open”, so China just likes a kid who has never touched the world before. This policy was produced by the state president Xiaoping Deng after Mao dead. Xiaoping Deng realized that Mao’s policy would make China weaker and the political system of the Soviet Union also has some serious problems. Deng didn’t want China to become the second Soviet Union; he decided to open the market for the entire world. Then, the Soviet Union disintegrated at 1991. Same as Japan, China had several revolutions in the history, but all failed at the end. Currently, China is a big market of the world, we got the biggest population in the world, and that means China contains many cheap labor force. So a lot of international companies choose to set their factories in China, and then advanced idea and technologies go to China. Also, China sends many people to study abroad; these people will learn skill and knowledge in western universities, after graduation, they will return to China for servicing their homeland. After about thirty years “Reform and Open” policy published, the quality of Chinese’s life has significantly enhanced. Meanwhile, because globalization comes too fast, it greatly influences people’s common value, social system and traditional thinking. This phenomenon takes place on different age groups. For people whose age group is from 19 to 29 years old, their value is very open, they like peaceful life and environment, focus on changing as well, they are influenced by western fashion value. For people whose age rage is from 30 to 40 years old, they are under intense competition stress, they support themselves, they feel more responsibility to society and nation, and they are the center of developing in China. For people whose age rage is from 50 to 60 years old, they focus more on fame and reality, some of them still have old-fashion value. They don’t agree with young people‘s value. Now, China’s housing price is increasing, young people aren’t able to afford it, most have to get help from their parents. There is weird value on young lady, they don’t care about love, and all they want is fame or wealthy, they will to marry a rich person in order to have wealthy soon. Moreover, Chinese governor have more right than normal citizen, so their sons or daughters are conceited, and they think they don’t have to worry about many things with parents’ protect. Compare to the last generation, young people are softer. Many rich families send their children to developed countries, which hope them to stay at there after graduation. ”In total, there are 46 percent of the Chinese who have a property of more than 1.6 million dollars want to move out of the country. The United States and Canada are the most popular destinations. 14 percent have already made concrete plans. A total of 980 wealthy people from 18 major Chinese cities participated in the study.”(2) According to the data, we can see that Chinese people like western countries and systems more.
“Globalization, economic integration through trade, migration, capital flows and communication flows has been officially around since 1870. This new concept could noticeably profit if based on D. Ricardo' economic theory of comparative advantage. The latter theory states that each country should produce those products/services, which they can produce/provide with the lowest opportunity cost and total production cost. Hence, allowing all countries to produce and trade in the most efficient way so that the highest attainable welfare for all countries is reached.” (3) Comparing China, America and Japan, for political part, America was the most powerful one, but terrorist costs great. Japan and China also play an important international role, especially China, 10 out of the world's 25 largest sea ports are already in China. For economic part, Japan is a major economic power, electric and auto-mobile industry are famous, and China has cheap labor, after the market opened, Chinese economic grows extremely fast. American economic fall into a decline, unemployment rate is rising, but American people still have good living conditions. The biggest problem globalization give is intercultural problem, ancient countries as China and Japan has many traditions, new thinking and new lifestyle present a big impact on these traditional stuff, especially happen on young people, they have open-minded, most are not interested in old culture, American fresh culture affect the new generation of the world. Long time ago, with the enhancement of marine technology, people started to find the new world. Virtually, new things change people’s normal lifestyle. America was the first one who starts to build communication stage which is worldwide internet. Internet makes people talk easier, social network website such as Facebook and Skype have been embraced around the globe, estrangement between nation and nation is eliminating, people can instantly know what happen in other countries. We can watch news and vides without newspaper and DVD player, internet greatly enriched the life of people. There is a Chinese saying: "It's better to travel 10000 miles than to read 10000 books." Nowadays we can see the world at home by computer, I think this is a kind of advance, by communicating knowledge and technologies, people have a better life.
Reference:
(2)http://www.chinatimes.nl/en/news/china/416-2011-11-01-12-02-12(01 NOVEMBER 2011, WRITTEN BY CHINA TIMES)
