Within our specific area, Arlington, I found that our evidence of globalization included more establishments that were mostly about food. Food is an integral part of culture and when people bring a piece of home with them when migrating to another country, they usually think of food! We didn’t find much evidence of the environmental dimension in the Arlington area compared to that in the Netherlands and found it interesting because the environment is something I personally never found as an evidence of migration. I always thought, “How could something so large in scale be able to be migrated and used around the world?” It wasn’t until I saw Jody and Jonas’ pictures of the containers being recycled! Globalization is a long process because again, as Van Asperen states in his article, although we are aware of different cultures, we always assume that there’s a “right one” to have in place. There isn’t a right one nor should it be one thing. Globalization is a challenging thing to be accepted by others because they believe their culture is their core identity; thus, once it is mixed and having to adapt to different cultures, it goes into a shock. For example, perhaps those who go into an American movie theatre would be shocked to see Bollywood movies playing during the same time as major motion pictures are playing. The process of globalization is tedious because of others’ assumption that only one culture could be prevalent; even though this certainly is not true!! The photos that impressed me the most were the recycled boxes turned into apartment homes in the Netherlands. Not only does it show a dimension of environmentalism but is also shows how environmentally-aware those in the Netherlands are! For a country who bikes a lot, this would make total sense. It’s interesting to me that our German pastry shoppe and Japanese Auto Repair Shop didn’t seem so new to us. When we saw these establishments, we live in a modern day society where integration of different cultures were normal so we were a bit hesitant to include it in our photo essay because we thought it’d be “too obvious.” I felt more connected with those in the Netherlands, funny enough! The examples they used to show us how globalization was in their country was so astounding to me because they didn’t give us obvious examples of “chinese restaurants” or “french bakeries”. Those in the Netherlands have their own representation of globalization, one that doesn’t involved pulling from different ethnic cultures but rather showing how different ethnic cultures influenced their OWN culture. Each individual when touring the area felt challenged because we were afraid that our pictures would be too obvious. As a culturally diverse cohort already, we didn’t want to include things that were too obvious or not “diverse” enough. Katie knew the area of Arlington really well compared to both Sam and I and it helped us in finding our way all throughout. Jody and Jonas found help with a tour guide since they couldn’t believe how big of an area their assigned place really was. It’s impressive to see how although we go to schools in our area, we aren’t really aware of what’s around us! Our conversations when going through our pictures was like, “Okay, but how could we describe how globalization is evident? I mean, sure it’s a japanese auto repair shop, but what makes it different than any other repair shop here in Arlington??” Although they were different in a cultural sense, were they really? Just because they had the name “Japanese” or “Heidelberg”, how do we know they don’t foster American cultural values in their business? That was probably how most of our conversations went because we were definitely unsure of how in-depth (globally wise) these “different” places were from their other competitors like Jiffy Lube or Dunkin Donuts.

Van Asperen had two intercultural ideologies: monism and relativism. When working in our intercultural teams in finding globalization in our communities, we first began with a monism approach and then a relativism approach. In the monism approach, Van Asperen says that, “it’s either yours or mine, but actually it’s mine.” When working together, we found that American students had a different working dynamic than those in the Netherlands. The way we had worked together was difficult because we found it challenging to choose 10 photos for our photo essay. While some of us said, “this picture is definitely worth putting in,” others thought differently and we couldn’t seem to find an equilibrium. Furthermore, it was even more difficult because we created an “us-them” dynamic (especially those in the US) when choosing the photos. For example, we thought it was challenging to find “culturally different” establishments in the Netherlands because those in the US didn’t think they were “exotic” enough (because of how different our views on culture were between us). This further extended the “us-them” dynamic, a position that us in the US inherently acquired. Eventually, we reached a relativism approach because we determined that culture is not synonymous to being astronomically foreign. Although aspects in the Netherlands weren’t as exotic as those in America expected globalization to be like in the Netherlands, they were still examples of globalization because they utilized different cultures in the influence of their establishments!

Just curious – would your experience working on the project have been very different if you had divided your team in different partnerships – so if Jonas worked with Sam and Katie and Nikki worked with Jody?

Loes – would you describe the Dutch way – more relaxed and laid back?

Hello Nikki,
You ask some very good and interesting questions. Yes, sometimes a complex phenomenon like globalization can raise more questions the more you learn about it. Don’t let the complexity paralyze you though, exchanging different perspectives in itself is already a wonderful outcome! Why do you think there is such a difference in perspective in both places? And don’t forget: both universities are located in the USA and The Netherlands, but both classrooms are very international..:-)
Good luck on your next assignment, it looks like you have established a good atmosphere for discussions like these.
Loes

Hi Nikki!

I enjoyed meeting you and I am looking forward to work together this semester.