Increasing globalization erases national individuality

Increasing globalization erases national individuality

By Graham Best

JAKARTA (JP): I came to work in Indonesia because I wanted to
experience something different. Like many or even most people in
Britain I knew nothing about this country. It was, I thought, a
single tropical island near Malaysia. Of course I knew all about
Borneo from wildlife documentaries, and plenty about Bali from
holiday programs, but I didn't know they had anything to do with
Indonesia. My first glance at the atlas was a revelation.

As I pored over books about my destination I realized it
would be quite a change from Britain. Different religions,
cultures, languages, flora and fauna, food (which I was
especially looking forward to) clothing and even a different way
to bathe.

When I arrived, it was no disappointment. Walking down the
road in Britain's capital city I wouldn't turn any heads, let
alone elicit cheerful greetings and enquiries as to where I was
going. I felt like a minor celebrity.

My first encounter with Indonesian food was also a memorable
experience. Something I shoveled into my mouth on the assumption
that it was some harmless variety of green bean turned out to be
a red hot coal. As I sat gasping for air and crying into my
noodles, I reflected that we don't see fresh chilies very often
in Britain and when we do they're not mixed into the meal whole.
Now I tuck into Padang food nearly every day.

Just as memorable but a lot more pleasurable was my first
excursion to the Thousand Islands. Snorkeling along the coral
reefs I saw things I thought only existed on the Discovery
Channel. In Britain you are lucky if you can see your own hands
through the silt.

In Britain the shock of pouring a ladle of cold water over
your head could kill the sick and the elderly, but at 30 degrees
Celsius and 95 percent humidity it's actually very refreshing.
The thing that terrified me most of all as I was preparing to
leave England, the Asian toilet, can also be got used to with
practice.

The roads, however, lived up to their reputation. I've been
parachuting and potholing, but the drive to Pelabuhan Ratu and
back was by far the most frightening experience of my life. After
seeing the exhaust from a Metro Mini I started thinking I might
as well take up smoking.

So when I went back home for Christmas and friends and family
asked me, "What's Indonesia like?", I had plenty to tell them. It
is different, I told them as I babbled on like some 20th Century
Captain Cook. Well, as I said, on many levels it is. However, on
some it is getting less and less.

It was not until I was standing in that most Western of
things, a shopping mall in Cheltenham, that I realized this. I
stood there and tried to pick out the differences between it and
the ones 7,500 miles away in Jakarta. McDonald's and Wendy's
serve the same food, the only concession to the tropics being the
addition of Chili sauce. In Britain the people generally have
lighter hair and were taller, but they wear the same clothes.

Back in Jakarta I watched Asian MTV, in English, playing the
same videos that I had watched on the British Top of the Pops. I
also saw English football matches on Liga Inggris.

If you lived in a modern house and don't like rice you could
spend a whole year here and never have a mandi or eat Padang
food. It'd be your loss, but you could do it.

Shopping malls and McDonald's restaurants are the same the
world over and satellite TV makes short work of national
boundaries. As developing countries develop people with access to
these developments lead increasingly similar lives. They become
part of a global culture. Globalization is the buzzword of the
moment, but it wasn't until I came here looking for something
different that I really grasped what it meant.