Cultural Challenges of Globalization

Globalization is an inescapable fact that conditions daily life in China today. To squarely confront this fact, two mythologies regarding globalization and China must be avoided. The first is the romanticization of globalization, which turns the trend into an all-purpose solution to China's problems that will introduce 'universal' values to the Chinese people. In fact, Chinese people should maintain a critical distance from the phenomenon and realize that so-called 'universal' values often turn out to be self-serving 'Western' values. On the other hand, there is also the mythology that globalization is not happening in China at all, but is rather a process occurring elsewhere that does not affect the daily life of the Chinese people. Various examples from contemporary fiction and film prove this observation to be wrong. Moreover, they point the way to a possible response to the challenges of globalization: a community ethic that keeps the Chinese people grounded in their local environment and dependent upon each other to face and overcome the difficulties of globalization together.