Forget America ! China is stealing our culture !!

I'm sure you've thought about it. Globalization is no longer that chapter in your text book. Constantly regurgitating the definition of globalization and imagining the concept. Listening to your teachers as they explained the future - the globalized future. It seemed like it would take forever. It seemed like globalization was such a long process it would take some time (make that ALOT of time) before we saw some of the extremes this crazy teacher was talking about.





But, unlike many things in life globalization accelerated much quicker than we had anticipated. In no time we saw our indigenous methods being called outdated and being replaced with "better" methods, the globalized way, the "one world order" way, the "international" standard... the American standard.

I'm keeping this really simple, because globalization for too long has been seen as this big highfalutin phenomenon that we will never encounter, meanwhile it's stealing our lives without us even realizing it.

Look at souvenirs. Go to the nearest souvenir store or whatever it is called wherever you live and see how many truly "local" products you find. Half  More than half of the items in your local souvenir store, things that represent YOUR culture and YOUR way of life are produced in China. I think as Jamaicans, we get it the hardest because apparently everybody wants a piece of our culture, to the point where the next generation doesn't know much about their culture because it is now a mediated culture - its true form no longer exists.

A coworker went to Istanbul, Turkey recently (if you click the link you'll see a photo of one of their shopping bazaars- lovely place for locally produced items wouldn't you think?) and her experience cemented the fact that China has stolen everybody's culture. She went with the idea that going to these kinds of bazaars and outdoor shopping areas would be good for getting some locally produced items... you know, some great Turkish stuff. However, she was in for quite a shock. 80% of the items were made in Chine, while 10% were American products and the other 10% of products were "local" and very expensive(she also noted that for half of the local products she couldn't tell whether they were really locally produced or not).

Another coworker who went to Africa for a series of meetings shared a similar experience. Before we think that this is solely about the 2nd and 3rd world countries, first world countries have also been invaded by China. Whenever I go to the USA or Canada I try to bring back something for my friends (sweets, coin purses, all sorts of random goodies) and I decided to browse the souvenir section of a few stores and lo and behold China was emblazoned on every item.

Forget about how "Americanization" is said to be affecting our cultures and how the world is shifting to a single "American" culture, and focus for a minute on how China (in a more subtle way) is changing, shaping our culture. They are taking our cultural items, making them more fancy, producing them more cheaply and soon we will lose the whole essence of said local cultural items and our culture all together.



Afterall we're all Made In China...