Consider My Origin

I view myself more as a national citizen rather than a global citizen. I consider my identity or my belonging more toward my nation, People’s Republic of China, than toward the world. This reflection of myself does not mean that I vote con on globalization. I think of myself this way only because it is the nation who shape me mostly, not the globe.

It is common sense that when we were born, we were blank like a paper. From then, our experience and knowledge formed our personality and our philosophy. Hypothetically speaking, if we are in a globalized society, we can have plenty of experience with foreign people and goods, and we can learn foreign cultures together with our own. However, in reality where our societies are more unitary and less diverse, we mostly interact with people from our nation, consume products that are produced in our nation, and listen to legends and fairy tales from our culture. As a result, we are who we are because of all these things. I am a Chinese, so I think like a Chinese and behave like a Chinese. If I am, for example, a German, then I would speak Deutsch and think like a German. It is very hard to abandon our originality when we evaluate ourself.

Globalization describes a bright future when different cultures coexist and merge with each other. However, I fear that achieving globality would lead to extinction of most cultures and leaving one or some dominant cultures. Strong nations can exploit their wealth and industry to advocate their cultures, and it would not be fair for the weak. An example would be Hong Kong film industry being crushed by Hollywood. Before 1990s, Hong Kong produced great movies that were popular in mainland China, Japan, and southeast Asia. However, after Hollywood films were introduced to Hong Kong, they wrecked the local movies because of their industrialized production and their high after-effect technology. As a result, Hong Kong nowadays have much less good films, and they are no longer popular.

In conclusion, I consider myself as a national citizen because it is the nation’s economics and cultures that define me. Diversity of cultures are valuable because they can learn from others without losing their roots. However, I fear that as we move toward globality, some cultures might become dominant and eliminate the rest.