Marketing Is Right but Not for Cultural Spreading

It is what I have seen cultural transmission in Hong Kong: Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park was a Hong Kong theme park. Ocean Park is a Hong Kong theme park. Hong Kong Disneyland is ... an American theme park located in Hong Kong. Something comes and something is gone.

It has been said that cultural transmission is making people's life better off, in the sense that we can experience and taste some brand new things. Integration of culture, in some sense, is able to get rid of the conflicts resulting from the misunderstanding of different culture. But, one thing we need to bear in mind is that cultural transmission can be like the Pandora's box. It may cause the disappearance of cultural identity.

With the economic globalization, cultural diversity is vanishing and can be attributed to the cultural marketization. When Apple is expanding its market to a global stage in order to make people in different countries have the opportunity to consume its products, we rarely pay attention to that our world is becoming more and more homogenous. Wearing Mickey Mouse ears, drinking Pepsi or Coca Cola, eating Big Macs, and surfing Facebook on a Macbook Air are what I can see in Hong Kong and they also happen in many other countries. If I have nearly the same cultural experience in all over the world one day in the future, what is the meaning of travelling? Of course, it is not that case now but it is the fact that basically we consume similar cultural products. MacDonald’s is the example.

Some will say cultural homogeneity is the trend of globalization. Huntingston pointed out in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order that when cultural conflicts occur, there will be two consequences: the disappearance of the traditional culture and the intrusion of commercialism and consumerism. Some well-know American brands, such as Coca Cola, Nike, Levi’s and McDonald’s, are not only products. At the same time, they represent American pop culture, prosperity, as well as ideology. Everyone is consuming not only the products themselves, but also the ways they live a life. This lifestyle that relies on consumption and that originates from America is usually seen as a global culture. This is what many enterprises expect to see because the success of creating a global culture means that they own a global market.

Americanization, as above-mentioned, is a particular case representing for the process of globalization. What I want to point out from this example is that present cultural transmission, in some sense, is happening in a commercial way. Apple is now the leader in the new technology with respect to computer and mobile devices. It will be obvious that American culture will be easily spread out when the increasing numbers of consumers are willing to purchase Apple’s products. The logic underlying is that culture transmission is not endogenous, meaning that it cannot occur without