What is globalization? (rewrite)

1) Summarize in your own words of materials you read

: Globalization is composed of four major factors – the cultural, the social, the political and the economic. The cultural factor indicates languages, hobbies and so on. The political factor means such as democracy. Also globalization implies the importance of international organization. In most countries, the economic factor represents capitalism. Globalization increases these factors shared. So it leads to have a similar life style all over the world. As the globalization progressed, ironically, local is being magnified as a new dimension of globalization. We called ‘glocalization’. In the view of globalization, we are required to have cultural relativity. However, it is also important to have a critical view or thought.

2) Mention of any new, interesting, or unusual items learned

: I interested in glocalization. I thought local and global can’t be compatible, but local and global are regarded as being different sides of same coin. In addition, I was surprised one theory- Ritzer’s grobalization(not globalization). Ritzer said globalization can limits itself.

I think globalization is economic, cultural and social sharing. These sharing expand our conception. In the past, Koreans had a strong sense of homogeneous society. So Korean would tend to exclude things or people that are not belonged to Korea. Foreign workers, for example, excluded from homogeneous society. Moreover, in Korea society, discrimination against foreign workers became a serious issue in the past. Nowadays, Koreans don’t stick to homogeneous society. Koreans became more respect to other countries or countries custom. Actually, discrimination against foreign workers is still in existence. However, I think sense of homogeneous is reducing and sociability to foreigners who are not homogeneous is increasing.

Also globalization occur a lot of exchange. The notable example is increasing of cross-border trading. It enables us to buy mangoes (represented foreign products) at local markets, without going abroad. Cross-border trading is not only occurs in the aspect of products but also in the aspect of education. It is related to exchange students. They learned not only other languages and major knowledge but also different cultures or customs. I think it leads to have a mind-opening perspective.

However, globalization is not always good. We should remember that globalization has also several problems like global inequality. In Multinational Corporation, like Starbucks, promote fair trade.

3) Identify at least one question, concern, or discussion angle that is either problematic in some respect or could have been elaborated more.

: I wonder the boundary between cultural relativism and extreme cultural relativism. For example, Is it okay to eat Boshintang(Korea’s traditional soup made by dog meat) in South Korea? - Should we accept as a traditional culture of country or Should we flatly oppose because of respect for dog’s life?