Nowadays in the 21st society globalisation is such inevitable thing that it affects everyone in any part of the word. I am not an exception, especially as the world citizen who travels and lives around the world. Recently there were many activities in my life that somehow were linked to globalization, however for this assignment I chose the activities related to travelling.
I am the international student, recently I had the chance to travel to New York City, and I saw the way our society is globalized. I lived for couple of months in Toronto, Ontario Canada couple of years ago that is like two hours away from New York by plane. Thanks to globalisation, there are so many similarities and same stores in both cities. When I got hungry and ran out of money, I could go to McDonalds or KFC anytime I wanted to, both in New York, Toronto, or even in my hometown. When I wanted to go shopping without spending too much of my humble student budget, there was the availability of Zara stores in both cities. Downtown of New York and my hometown was full of coffee shops, Starbucks, skyscrapers and busy people. For example, on Saturday, January 30th in the afternoon, I got hungry after sightseeing in New York, and I ran out of money. However, the McDonalds store was nearby to Times Square shopping area and it saved me from hunger. I would have preferred McDonalds out of local businesses fast food chains such as pizza chains or fried chicken chains, because McDonalds was familiar to me for many years in a row. On Sunday, January 31st, before heading home, I wanted to buy some clothes for college. I looked for stylish and affordable versions. Luckily, there were Zara stores in Seoul. In the evening, after having dinner, I bought two Zara clothing items in the shopping mall in Seoul. It saved me time, because upon my arrival home I did not have to go to local Zara store for clothes shopping. Because of globalisation, there are same stores with same goods with same services around the world on different continents. From the one hand it is very convenient, but from the other hand, countries and nationalities may lose its own identity. The positive along with the negative sides of globalisation that I faced with recently are described in the next paragraph.
As a result, based on my globalisation examples provided above, globalisation has impacted quite a lot in my life. First, it is a very convenient thing when most of the familiar brands have their presence in most of the countries around the world. It saves time and it makes sure that you will get the trusted product or service with the trusted price. Therefore, economically, globalisation saves both money and time. When it comes to cultural points of view, there are however some pros and coins. Both New York City, Toronto and my homecity have the presence of global brands such as McDonalds, Starbucks, Zara and many others. As I experienced myself, it is very convenient, however, from the cultural side; countries may have the possibility of losing its own cultural identity by global brands who are absorbing each market worldwide. In order not to lose possibility of losing the cultural identity, global cities such as New York must not forget and focus on their local specialities as well. For example, when I was in New York, there were a lot of local, not globalised fast food chains. However, most foreigners tend to go to McDonalds because of its affordability and convenience. I personally would recommend the owners of local NYC pizza stores to promote their pizzas to foreign people and give out free samples. This way, by my opinion, New York City will not lose its own cultural identity. Same goes with Zara stores in New York City. There are quite a lot of foreigners in New York, and most of them tend to shop at Zara, not at local stores. As a result, New York Citynowadays is being absorbed by globalisation that it affects its own local identity through local food chains and clothing chains.
In the first article that comes from Suffolk University “The World is Spiky” (The World), the author argues that “the world is flat and spiky globalizations wreaks havoc on poorer places” (The World). Based from my experience of globalisation, I somehow agree with this argument. Despite that I describe my recent daily activities in the world’s megacity such as New York, I agree that while those cities are becoming more and more innovative, those smaller cities especially in Southeastern Asian and the Caribbean are becoming more and more vulnerable compared to the economic powerhouses.
In the second article “Globalization and McDonaldization” (Ritzer), the author argues about the negative aspects of McDonalds and that “it is nothing at all” (Ritzer). I agree partly with the author’s statement, because, as I mentioned above, because of McDonalds rapid expansion around the world, local countries may have the possibility of losing their own culture with their own food and eating traditions. McDonalds is Americanised, fast and non-traditional, however most and most people tend to consume it more because it saves time and money.
In the conclusion, globalisation has both its positive and negative sides. At first, it seems that globalisation makes our world more convenient and fast paced, however, if we look at globalisation in more detailed way, we can see that unfortunately globalisation kills the own cultural identity of the countries. But however, the world is becoming more and more globalising nowadays and this is inevitable process that nobody and nothing can escape from. In this case it is very important to keep the balance between the global brands that are coming rapidly all over the world, such as Zara, McDonalds, Starbucks and KFC; and the local brands and services that serve the products and services with national identity and pride. Also, globalisation makes rich cities richer and poor cities poorer, and this issue must be dealt with and solved.
Overall, globalisation has more positive sides rather than negative when it comes to analyzing our life situations. It makes our lives more convenient, it saves time and thanks to globalisation, we as humans, feel anywhere we are, like at home thanks to the presence of the same brands and same products and same services.
Works Cited
Ritzer. "Globalization and McDonaldization." N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.
"The World Is Spiky." N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.
