You Can't Get There From Here - globalization

I'm reading a wonderful book by Gayle Forman called "You Can't Get There from Here." Gale and her husband took off a year to travel around the world -- kind of. They decided to visit places that are on the fringe -- like an island in Fiji that has a whole transvestite citizenry who are treated like a third sex -- and stay there for several months to really become temporary locals. When they went to India, Gale got work as an extra in Bollywood films and her insider's look is fascinating. Anyway, my treat for this week is a series of quotes from her book. Enjoy.

Cultural imperialism and globalization
I actually teach this as part of my intro to mass comm class so I appreciated her insights. You may think you don't know what cultural imperialism is, but you probably do. It brings to my mind the Starbucks inside China's Forbidden City, the McDonald's at the bottom of Rome's Spanish Steps and the Coke machines on Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is the idea that a powerful nation imposes its culture on a weaker nation -- think England and India during Queen Victoria's reign.

Gale sums up the controversy quite well: "Depending on your worldview, they[products of globalization] either herald the dawn of a beautiful age of international cooperation or foretell some grim world populated by prepubescent sweatshop workers and a monoculture of Gap-wearing, latte-drinking droids."

But Gale has a different view of globalization hunkered down between these two extremes: "Globalization is really about people, about what happens when your culture shows up in my living room or when my way of life is tossed into your lap. It's about the marriages -- some arranged, some chosen, some forced -- that result when everything gets mixed up."

And that is what I love about traveling, too. The excitement is never-ending. When I lived in Japan my lap was usually full of someone else's way of life and and I thrived on the variety. When it got to be too much I would retreat into my westernized apartment or call my ex-pat buddies and go to a place that served Western food. But I was never bored.

I remember during my first month there I sat outside on the front steps and looked at an empty field across the street and it was thrilling -- because I was looking at an empty field in JAPAN -- and next to that field were rice paddies on one side and a house with a tile roof on the other side. Living in another country is endlessly stimulating -- which can be wonderful and exhausting -- but never boring.

If you're interested in purchasing this book, it's on the Amazon.com carousel to the right.