The Impact of Economic Globalization on World Culture
2 The Impact of Economic Globalization on World Culture
2.1 The Current Situation
Facing the economic globalization which is an irreversible tide of the world, no matter they are developed or developing countries, they must be involved in this process; otherwise, they will lose their living space or fail to catch up with the trend of the times. A certain culture is always based on a certain level of economy. Globalization is bound to have profound effects on global culture, bringing big changes to all kinds of cultures. According to the specific trend of the global culture, there are three points of view in the current domestic and international academic circle. The first one is they recognize and accept the cultural globalization; the second one is they think the global culture will be in diversity; the third one is they think the global culture will be a diversified integration. People who hold the view of global culture think that globalization is comprehensive, so if we only acknowledge the economic globalization and exclude the cultural globalization, it will violate the basic logic. They emphasize the influence of economic on the culture; therefore, the economic globalization would form a universal culture. While other people who argue that the global culture will be in culture, and it will form a real cultural globalization. Apparently, they both have their one-sidedness and their rationality, so there come to the third view that the global culture will be a diversified integration. However, they do not tell us exactly which side of integration trend will be strengthened or which side of diversity trend will be strengthened. In this way, the so-called “diversified integration” will lose its meaning on building the real culture.
In order to accurately determine the impact of economic globalization on the global cultural trends, it is necessary for us to analyze the way of the impact of economic globalization on the global culture.
2.2 The Production and Consumption of Goods and Services
A case in point is that "McDonald's culture" spread around the world as tens of thousands of McDonald stores open to everywhere. For the Chinese, they consider "McDonald's"and "KFC" more as a symbol of American culture than a symbol of fast food. Instead of filling their stomach, people who enter into the stores just want to feel a bit of “American atmosphere”. There are 28,000 McDonald's retails in the world from 120 counties. In the year of 2000, the overall volume of sale arrived ＄ 40 billion, while 60﹪of the total income came from the overseas business. Professor Dorfma, an American scholar, said, “Coca-Cola is not a simple matter, which is supported by the superstructure.” In addition to material commodities, the circulations of cultural products in the world more directly contribute to the development of the global culture. For example, Reader's Digest of the USA circulates in more than 100 countries with 19 languages and 48 kinds of international versions, while “SCI”, “SSCI”, “EI” have become an important standard for judging academic, scientific, and technological achievements.
2.3 The Turnover of the Staff
Under the situation of economic globalization, the talent flow will become more frequent and extensive, mainly illustrated by the flow from developing to developed countries. According to statistics, 1,200 million people from developing countries now work in the United States companies, for example, 40﹪~ 50﹪university students graduates in India working abroad; There are 10 million Africa university students are working in developed countries; Chinese people account for nearly one-third of the 20 thousand engineers and technicians working in the Silicon Valley of United States; Since 1985, 82﹪ of the graduates from Qing Hua University who study the high technology immigrated the United States, while the figure was up to 76﹪ in Beijing University. At the same time, as the capital flow from developed countries into developing countries, a large number of staff also moves into the developing countries and some developed countries even send some staff to dedicate in the cultural dissemination, such as the “The Peace Corps” and some other cultural and assistance activities held by the United States. They send their teachers, missionaries, doctors abroad in order to do some volunteer activities. The flowing staffs actually are the carrier of their local cultures, who exchange their culture with the local people.
2.4 The Strategy of the Developed Countries to the Developing Countries The health economic globalization calls for the respect for different cultures and values, strengthening exchanges and dialogue rather than one culture eating up another one. Now the problem is some developed countries try to impose their cultures and values on other counties, attempting to put the developing countries in a subordinate status. An American sociologist once said, The spread of American popular culture has long been a series of efforts that people want to achieve the world's reunification. It has replaced the Latin pushed by the Roman Empire and Christianity.
Based on the analysis of the impact of economic globalization on the world culture and on the understanding of the diversified integration from two different points of view, we can recognize this problem more objectively.
As a complete concept, culture has its own deep structure and surface structure.
The deep structure of a culture，which comprises values，thinking and behavioral patterns，religious beliefs，esthetic tastes，etc., is of great stability and inertia. It develops following its own orbit and will not easily get assimilated by other cultures. It is not as easy as selling McDonald's, if the values of the United States want to conquer all the nations of the world. In contrast，the surface structure of the culture，which centers around consumption，is easy to get globalized, because, the surface structure is the same as the popular culture, which is just a kind of spiritual fast food, such as jeans, Titanic, Kara 0K, etc. The economic globalization can only form a kind of culture globalization at this level. However, even at this level, when a kind of foreign culture spreads into another country, the local culture will change the origin form of the foreign culture and form a new one, which may be called the third form of culture. A case in point is that in the United States, people patronizing McDonald’s want to save money and time, while in China, people do not have money but they have enough time, so they will treat McDonald's as places where a special ceremony can be held ,such as birthday, farewell party and so on. Besides, the dinner time of Chinese is far more than the Americans. We can see that McDonald's has been something in China. When the Coca-Cola came to China, some people added some ginger in it. In the same way, when the Chinese things are introduced to the overseas, they would also promote the localization of them. For example, the Chinese brooms and chamber pot were taken as an Arts & Crafts on the wall in the west. Nevertheless, contrasted with the deep structure of culture, this level of culture is easy to be globalized.
From what has been discussed, if we just have a general description about the world culture of diversification, we would not have a clean idea about the relationship between the economic globalization and the world culture. If we analyze this problem from different angles, we will achieve different conclusions. Although the surface structure of the culture is easy to get globalized, the deep structure of a culture is comparatively not easily to get assimilated by other cultures, which is determined by the nature of a nation’s culture.
2.5 The Conflict and Assimilation of the World Culture
Global culture will eventually find a way of adapting itself to global economy through interaction with the latter．With the upgrading of the economic globalization, different cultures will be brought into full intercourse. The flowing of the technology, personnel, capital all through the world made the contacts between countries closer than ever before, as well as the conflicts. Thus, in the context of the globalization, challenges, frictions and conflicts will be inevitable between different cultures, which are the object way of existing of the culture conflict. While the subject way is that the culture hegemonism is the potential motivation of the culture conflict. Represented by the United States for global domination of Western developed countries, they monopoly on the global media business dumping in their culture, ways of life and values to the world, by virtue of their technological and economic strength. We must also see that globalization has promoted the human’s universal interaction, so that different cultures, particularly Eastern and Western cultures have greatly increased the mutual understanding. Through our concerted efforts, the possibility of conflicts between different national cultures will be greatly reduced. The development of different cultures of the world has experienced a process that it conflicted with other cultures as well as being absorbed, which is also a process that the new world culture should adapt itself to the economic globalization.
2.6 Cultural Identity
It is assumed that the origin of globalization can be traced back to the times when Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama began their epoch-making voyages in 1492 and 1497,respectively. Tony Spybey remarke, “Europeans began to have an influence on the rest of the world and implant their cultures on all continents. The acquisition that what is a world view by Europeans produced as its long-term outcome the world’s first truly global culture.” ( Spybey, 1996)
Discussion on cultural identity concerns the confluence of global culture with local and national culture. The global trends and local variations place a great strain on older concepts of a national and regional culture. A global media culture provides new sources for pleasures and identities that redefine gender, fantasies and new cultural experiences. These lead to the fragmentation of traditional identities, subjectivities and the construction of new identities. Obviously, the intersection of the global and the local is producing new matrixes to generate the production of hybrid identities. In other words, the global permeates the local with the result that new configurations emerge. In this process there create “contradictory forces of neocolonization and resistance, global homogenisation and new local hybrid forms and identities.” ( Yu Keping & Huang Weiping,1998) Although economic globalization forces can be oppressive and erode cultural traditions and identities they can also provide possibilities to reshape or remould one’s identity.
3 Impact of Economic Globalization on Chinese Culture
3.1 The Current Situation of Chinese Culture
Since China became a full WTO member in 2002, globalization has become a hot topic in China. With the development of the economic globalization, here comes the question about the culture identities. The problem arises when we perceive identity as fixed, natural and timeless. Such a conception makes it unlikely for contested and plural identities to emerge.
In spite of the fact that global forces can be oppressive and erode local traditions and identities, they can also provide new framework for people to remould their identities.
Discussion on economic globalization and cultural identity is of great significance in contemporary China, as the country is getting more and more involved in the process of economic globalization. It is not easy for anyone talking about globalization not to generalize or articulate it in stereotypes. Nevertheless, the huge and fast-growing literature on globalization in China demonstrates that the theoretical study of globalization is flourishing in the country. Diverse attitudes towards globalization can be summarized by the terms they are using, such as “worldness”, “internationalization”, “transnationalization”, “international integration”, “interdependency”, “Westernization” and “convergence”. In China, globalization is a material reality. The global trends in all walks of life reflect that China, after having shut itself against the outside world, has merged into world community in a deep and extensive manner.
3.1.1 Americanization of Chinese Values
With further development of China’s reforms and open-up policy, there are more and deeper communications with western cultures．In this process，a lot of American values are introduced into China such as individual freedom，competition，material wealth and family values. Many young Chinese adopt most of these values as the “American way of life”. They prefer to pursue the American values more than our traditional ones. Actually, the Chinese values have been Americanized to some extent though the distinctiveness remains．
We can find that many young Chinese now have strong beliefs in individual freedom and try to be more self-reliant．Unlike their elders, they are much less dependent on the support of others．They highly value the efforts of themselves and wish to be successful through their own striving and efforts．They adore individualism instead of the collectivism which is advocated in our traditional culture. And they think more for themselves instead of always trying to maintain harmony through tolerance of others．Their choices are more decided on their own interests instead of society and country．These changes have both positive and negative effects．On one hand，the young Chinese today are more self-promoting than before．They make decisions by themselves．On the other hand，they have become more self-oriented or even more selfish.
They lay less emphasis on team spirit．Their loyalty to a given group is weak．They are apt to change their membership as it suits or leaves one employer for another．They take less consideration of others；personal goals take precedence over group goals，which sometimes destroy the harmony the situation may achieve．Many of them admire the American value and want to study or work in the United States．
3.1.2 The Popular Culture in China
With the influence of the cultural globalization and the gradual formation of a new world system, China is witnessing a “cultural movement” characterized by one “fever” after another. Against the background of global capitalism, the above-mentioned logical concepts of economic mechanism are not only applied effectively in economic activities, but also in the development of culture. The hegemony of Chinese mainstream culture may still be influential, but growing popular culture identities have managed to make a strong presence. More and more people have changed their attitudes towards consumer culture. As a result, a local cultural study has recently become a fashionable interdisciplinary inquiry and multiculturalism, a much controversial theory.
The rise of popular culture in China is accompanied by globalization and “the market economy increasingly penetrating into all realms of social life and consumption starting to manipulate and generate desire”. (Tang, Xiaobing, 1993) “Popular culture” is often described as “market culture” in Chinese context, as opposed to the “mainstream culture”—works about the State ideology, the “main theme” culture—works highlighting the leadership of the Party, the revolutionary traditions and the socialist spiritual civilization, and the “intellectual culture” which is usually of “high-brow” works enriched with “deep thought” and “elegance”. The fact that popular culture makes use of modern media such as TV, film, video, etc is responsible for its popularity. Popular culture as newly-emerged cultural identity is obviously achieving more and more presence in the cultural market.
In China, the emergence of new cultural identities such as the “popular” indicates competition with the mainstream cultural values and challenges to the canon. The reason is that they not only fulfill many people’s desires but also satisfy people’s need of cultural participation, and of staging and performing cultural identities in fashion. The karaoke machine, though not quite as fashionable in the West as it used to be, can be found even in small and remote Chinese villages.
What makes it fascinating is the double function of this cross-media. MTV, an imported cultural form from America via Hong Kong, is now being transformed into a propaganda device for the service of the Party and the State ideology. People listening to this reformed music are more fascinated by the new style rather than being able to arouse the “revolutionary enthusiasm”. At the same time, political nostalgia about the cultural relics of the times of the Great Cultural Revolution is also dissolved in this new style. The political can not has in the process been secularized. The same fate has happened to almost the whole variety of Chinese classical series and the “high-brow” literature.
There is a heated debate on the matter. Some people think that popular culture featured by commercialization is not culture in its essence, because it is utilized to make a profit rather than to cultivate or educate. Others believe that popular culture is a direct consequence of international cultural flows and global capitalism. In order to appreciate it, one has to take the power of social discourse, the market economy and the cultural “consumer” into consideration. The former holds the viewpoint that commercialization of culture is a form of capitalist ideology, especially to the younger generation. The latter considers that the function of popular culture is mainly to enrich the life of the masses and that it liberates culture from the ivory tower of the elite. Its multiple cultural forms match people’s desire for variety of cultural needs. Therefore, it functions to promote social progress and cultural prosperity. However, people tend to go to extremes. With new cultural identities approaching, some are quite worried about degradation of the traditional Chinese cultural values. As a result, they try to assert the crisis of human spirit. Others, seeing chances to get quick fortunes, involve themselves heart and soul in culture business. They devote themselves into commercial writing, paying little or even no attention to artistic and spiritual pursuit in their works. In spite of the debate and disputes, new cultural identities are being recognized and popular culture has become part of people’s life.
3.2 Preserving Traditional Culture
Non-material cultural heritage is characteristic of certain nationalities and is passed from generation to generation, said Qiao Xiaoguang, Professor and Director of the Non-material Cultural Heritage Research Center at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The subject has drawn growing attention nationwide after Chinese Kunqu Opera was listed as an intangible cultural heritage by the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in 2001.
“A nation rich in cultural resources, China has an ocean of non-material cultural heritage including folk art, literature, opera and dance. But many of these precious traditions are under the threat of extinction with the modernization of the country,” Qiao stressed.
“There is not enough awareness of what these cultural heritages are, let alone the necessary personnel, funding and legislative efforts to rescue and protect them. What's more worrying is that random tourism development in many local areas have misled people's understanding of aboriginal culture and have proved to be destructive to the maintenance of the original cultural ecology, ” he said.
3.3 China’s Cultural Development Strategy
In the new era, culture as a kind of soft power, has become the world's future power. The competition in the future world will be a cultural competition. Chinese traditional culture, with a long history of culture, is a unique part of human civilization. An open-minded attitude towards absorbing the excellent elements of foreign values and a critical way of thinking are equally essential in dealing with intercultural communication．Meanwhile，we should maintain the excellent parts of our traditional value and display them to the world. Therefore, according to this, we should put forward the following strategies.
3.3.1 Exploring Actively the Intersection of Different Cultures
Globalization is not a global homogenization and the colonization process, nor is a global unitary process, but a gradual process of respecting differences. Recognizing the “different”, which is the basis of harmony that makes things developed? If we blindly pursue the “same” not only can we not develop things, but also will we decline the things. Therefore, Chinese culture and world culture should get a consensus through communication, and find intersection in different cultures.
3.3.2 Bringing Modernization to our Traditional Culture
From the perspective of cultivating the individuality of our culture, we should know how to translate excellent ingredients of Chinese tradition culture into globally significant cultural value resources. And then make a unique contribution to world culture. In modern times, only though communicating with the outside world and the foreign cultures can Chinese traditional culture be developed. Only a cultural fit with the times; to keep up with progress; updating and developing constantly without losing its traditional features, is a viable one.
3.3.3 Developing the Cultural Industries Vigorously
The support from the government plays an important role during the process of developing our cultural industries. Now, China is sparing no efforts to improve the cultural industries, strengthen the construction, manage the cultural market and promote the development of cultural industries. A strategy of vigorous development of the cultural industry is now at the top of the agenda of government at all levels.
3.3.4 Focusing Both the Domestic Market and the Foreign Markets
As a full WTO member, China will inevitably face the impact of foreign cultural products, capitals and their values. We have to withstand these shocks. If we Chinese culture want to be invincible, we must participate actively in the process of economic globalization. We should make full use of our comparative advantages, expanding continuously the space of cultural industry’s development.
Conclusion
Human societies across the world have established progressively closer contacts over many centuries, but recently, in the post-World War II era to be exact, the pace has dramatically increased as well as deepened. Jet airplanes, cheap telephone and Internet services, email, computers, instant capital flows etc, all these have made the world a “global village” or, to put it another way, more interdependent than ever. As a result, laws, economies, culture, and social movements seem to be forming at the international level. Many politicians, journalists, and academics treat these trends as both inevitable and (on the whole) welcome. But for billions of the world's people, globalization means no more than uprooting their old ways of life and threatening their livelihoods and local cultures. The glamour of this world lies in its differences and diversities which make this world move, grow and enrich itself. (Erla Zwingle, 2001) It is truth that denying the value of all foreign culture would be like throwing the baby out the bath water．So an open minded attitude towards absorbing the essence elements of a foreign culture and a critical way of thinking are equally essential in dealing with intercultural communication. In other words, our attitude toward foreign culture is to select the essence and discard the dross. Meanwhile，we should maintain the excellent elements of our traditional value and display them to the world. Only in such an attitude shall we be able to constantly improve the strengths of our own cultural values.
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