Many people wonder if Globalization, instead than bringing people closer together, is in fact just making them more uniform. Does Globalization destroy the cultural individuality of non-western nations? In an excerpt from James L. Watson’s book Golden Arches East: McDonalds in East Asia he discusses how the implementation of a McDonalds, a traditionally Western institution based on free market capitalism, in China affected the local culture. Though he admits that the new fast food restaurant precipitated some basic changes in an economic and structural way, he also assures the reader that the people of Hong Kong were not stripped of their heritage or identity.
Let’s take McDonalds as an example of the far spanning reach of Globalization. McDonalds is after all one of the largest international corporation in the world, operating in over a hundred countries with over 31,000 total restaurant locations. From personal travel I have seen many different McDonalds in many different countries. But what has become apparent is that, more then anything else, the local culture seems to shape the institution, not the other way around. For example, a few years ago I was in Tunisia, a small North African country bordering the Mediterranean. Because of the Muslim dominant culture McDonalds was forced to craft its menu around the dietary restrictions of Muslims. As such, the menu had no fish on the menu, no pork, fewer beef products, and veggie pizza.
The point is that in order to be economically viable in countries like Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and China, the individual restaurants must be willing to grow within the confines of the local culture and tradition. In this sense, neither capitalism nor globalism is destroying non-western culture; rather, it is because of globalism that traditionally western institutions must learn about cultures other than their own. What’s so bad about that?