Winter vacation is coming to an end, and my homework are untouched. These days, I spend time thinking of things other than the endless pile of research papers, college forms, and worksheets. I know this isn`t a time to write blogs, but as I was flipping through the university pamphlets, a question that was bugging my mind for years now came to a conclusion, that I felt a sudden need to share it somewhere.

*Be warned that this is simply spilling out my thoughts, so there aren`t any coherency in it.

 

The question that bugged me was “What is Globalization?” The term ‘globalization’ became an enigma to me when I started thinking about college about two years ago. Even when I looked into the internet, nothing felt like it was describing ‘globalization’ to me. However, I think I can explain what it is to me now that I saw the university ads.

University all over Japan advertise that their school in globalized in some way. True, now that technology has evolved and times have changed, the world can`t ignore the need to cooperate with each other. I think it`s about time everyone came out of their territories to interact with different people. It`s only natural that universities focus on ‘globalization’. However, many of the pamphlets on the universities states that, “Connecting people through a common language (English) will bring us to globalize” or something close to that. It seems that many people globally and even in Japan itself see ‘globalization’ as unification of countries through understanding each other with a common language. It is true, though that if there is an internationally accepted language, we can understand each other to an extent. However, after the years of seeing my parent`s jobs up close, I came to view globalization differently.

I view English as just one of the many bridges to globalization. English itself doesn`t have the power to help us understand each other. For example, what of the indigenous people living deep in the mountains? How about those that can`t get sufficient education? How can we globalize if globalization is to ‘unify’? First of all, it`s very hard to understand each other when our ideas, morals, and cultures contrast each other. Thinking about it a little, how can a hardcore Christian relate with an equally hardcore Islam person? I will say, their opposing ideas will form some level of hostility. Isn`t that why there were countless war through the annals of humanity in the first place? What then is ‘globalization’ if unification is impossible?

 

I wasn`t able to fit everything in this page, so I made another under the title, 'Globalization2'. I will continue on my idea in the next topic!