13, 14, 57

 

These articles go well with last week's topic - mainly that culture is like a mixing pot. You introduce a different flavor, and both the ingredients and the soup are changed, mostly irreversibly. The McDonalds article is like a bay leaf- they get added to the soup, and they're still recognizably a bay leaf. They add to the soup, in this case Hong Kong's culture, are changed by it in turn. McDonald's added a culture of queuing, but it did nothing to discourage the practice of hovering. It helped to up the cleanliness standards of bathrooms, which I would say is an overall net positive. McDonald's altered some of its practices to better fit into the local culture - just nothing related to the actual food (at least when the article was written). Culturally, the practice of eating burgers with your hands is embraced, and modified by the elderly, who would wrap the wrappers around their hands. I can't say I wouldn't do something similar if I were used to eating with Chopsticks, whether or not it's embarrassing be damned. You can see this as well with the transnational villager's article. To continue the metaphor, it's like taking some soup home for the family. Almost like a culturally and socially loaded remittance, on top of any monetary value packed in as well. However, I do like that Levitt mention the assumption of some Americans that migrants will just transfer their loyalty to their new country. It's not like that, both the migrant and the country are changed a little, but the migrant does not just leave behind where they came from. Just like cultures aren't being turned into carbon copies of the American west - both are changed by the consumption, but neither is erased or overwritten. The article on the decontextualization of Asian religious practices reminded me nothing so much as a butcher cutting off the choice meats to bring out to a customer. It reminds me of the McDonalds article, but instead of a business coming over it's a practice, where much of the religious undertones is cut off, and no single entity is making money off it - or making money at all.