Finally, April 1st is coming to a close worldwide, and we can finally "trust" what we read on the internet again. In light of the start of the second quarter of the year, I feel that this is the best time to talk about globalization.
Being a global center of commerce, Hong Kong should be the most globalized society in the world, but I would argue that Hong Kong is in fact less globalized than many other countries because of its economy. I have had many great experiences in Hong Kong, but in all of these experiences, I sense a homogeneity that I could only compare to my limited experience with Japan and China. That being said, I would not say that this homogeneity is an absolutely negative of Hong Kong, but a small stepping stone that needs to be past over in order for Hong Kong to attain a higher level of global awareness as a society.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I am talking about Hong Kong's culture, rather than Hong Kong's national platform on the international stage, which I would consider different from one another. If you read the news, you will often see Hong Kong as a major proponent of major international business deals and the like. This has created large amounts of wealth for Hong Kong on a regional level (can't say national, since Hong Kong is technically a part of China). Even though there is this large amount of wealth, I would not consider there is a lot of cultural importing like I have experienced in America.
Finally I can talk about globalization. I would say this process that is happening to our world is the best thing to happen since nations came together to construct the International Space Station. With the complete globalization of the world, we would be able to abolish many modern problems that plague our world such as extreme poverty and segregation. This process is also arduous, which is what I would consider the major cause for the relatively isolated amounts of globalization that is currently occurring at the moment.
The problem with globalization being a resource and psychologically intensive process is that many of today's population, especially the population over the age of around 30, is relatively averted to as they have not grown in a world that was as interconnected as people around my age. I am not saying that they do not want globalization to occur, but are rather uncomfortable with some of the changes globalization would incur on their lifestyle. This population, though, is the population still running the majority of society understandably, so there is still a strong sense of isolationism occurring in governments and other leading bodies.
That being said, businesses are becoming a large proponent of globalization, as this allows them to serve a larger audience, and thus a larger profit. This globalization is limited though, as again, businesses are often focused of profit. This leads to many alteration of products to suit a society, which is what I would consider counter-intuitive to globalization. For example, Starbucks in Hong Kong is different from Starbucks in America as HK Starbucks serve drastically smaller sizes at a cheaper price with an altered image of "quality" coffee rather than the relaxing creative environment we often see in America. This is that I would consider highlights the problem of globalization; only the "successful" are currently able to partake in globalization and is thus still a luxury for the majority of society, and this should be changed so that globalization is available to all individuals.
Well, I have rambled long enough. I guess what I want to highlight in writing this is that even though Hong Kong might be a global identity in the economic realm, culturally, Hong Kong is just as novel as every other place in the world, with its own deficiencies and assets like every other society. This also showed me how much farther we must go as a human race to achieve globalization, and the effort that is require out of all of us to achieve this goal that will be a solution to many of today's modern dilemmas.