GED 105 Paper 2

My Family’s Thoughts on Globalization

Words: 1501

Globalization itself is an idea that keeps on growing and evolving; as nations

transition into a better version of themselves, they share their progress into a greater

whole. That being said, innovation is the main drive for Globalization and through

innovation comes profit for the workers in the country and the people who innovate.

Though, there is a downside to Globalization since it can be accessed by everyone

around the world as if it were given to the wrong hands, they would gain something

through ill actions. Globalization may be the best means or at least a big factor to unite

the world’s nations. Introduction of new ideas would mean to change old ideas; some

people may find change scary since it is basically looking ahead at an uncertain future

most of the time. Weighing out the pros and cons of Globalization might be a hard topic

to be certain of because in the world, nothing stays the same, and as every second

passes, things tend to change whether or not it’s from something as small as a pebble

moving somewhere else to governments changing laws. Essentially, Globalization can

unite us in various ways by just introducing foreign ideas in the most basic terms. From

what I can see, Globalization has its ups and downs, benefits, and consequences.

A numerable amount of people may see Globalization as the best course of action

to share the progress of humanity, while the other majority of people may think it’s
one of the causes for societal downfall. Reading into Globalization a lot more piqued

my interest since it has made me more aware of the political, cultural, and economic

environment around me. Globalization most likely impacted the way I see things, like

the way I talk and my perspective in life are a lot more influenced by western culture

and other ones that I have yet to identify. It does not mean it’s all benefits; however,

integrating a different country’s style can make it difficult to interact with people

sometimes socially. The thing that a person can benefit the most out of Globalization

would be gaining better insight into how people work, and you may find something that

you can relate to even if you are different from them, one such case is during the time

me and my family went to Singapore, and from there we had a passive exchange of

culture by just talking to the locals about anything.

Moving onto the benefits my family has gotten from economic Globalization.

Starting with my mother. She works at IKEA as a customer support manager, a mall-

sized branch that would fit at least a couple or more Supermarkets. Currently, it might

be the only branch established in the Philippines. Due to Globalization, the company

sought to expand their reach into our country to promote and share their brand of

Swedish quality furniture. My mother was given the opportunity there with a reasonably

high position as well due to her prior skills as a manager in different stores. From that,

this allowed my mother to work in a well-known worldwide brand. Then there is my

father, who was the first one to work abroad in our family as an engineer in Singapore in

the early 2010s. His exposure to Singaporean culture helped him see a better light in

life, a sort of height he could reach if he worked hard enough, at some point between
2013 and 2014 family within our household travelled to Singapore to enjoy what they

have, from food to movies it was fun. Being presented a country more advanced in

almost anyway has shown us what we can eventually achieve and because of

Globalization we had the luxury to experience that and be able to travel around the

world. Globalization with its many benefits has its drawbacks in some cases. Firstly,

was the decline of customers we have for our sari-sari store, since Globalization is the

integration of something from other countries that also means imports are sent over the

Philippines, people would prefer high quality and reasonably priced imports than what

sari-sari stores have. Then when the pandemic came it just made it much worse for us

since we had to permanently close down the sari-sari store due to the lock down and

some price inflation was in play as a factor. Finally for economic drawbacks, is that my

father almost lost his job due to an influx at his workplace, mostly from a foreign

influence. Luckily, he was not displaced as he proved useful for the company since he

did have a passion for job.

Globalization has an effect on every aspect of a country, politics are no

exception to this. Our government most likely relies on foreign practices and put it into

our own system. It is alright as long as it benefits the country and our citizens. Politics in

our household is not something discussed in detail it is however, bickered amongst

ourselves, mostly my father and grandparents tend to do that. Other than that, the

practices we take usually make trade easier for us and the country we trade with.

Though, the downside would be us relying too much on said country that we are trading

with and our authenticity as a country may not be realized if we do rely on it too much.
The bigger the country with trade with means they have more influence over us which

may spell danger for us in the future. Take a country like the United States, we tend to

get high quality goods from them like machinery, agricultural goods and semi-processed

materials. Same goes for Japan but we instead get raw ores, furniture and other

electronic products from them. Yes, it benefits both countries but there is a drawback in

background of these trades.

In the context of culture, Globalization focuses on the identity of the country by

tradition and culture. How the country’s history shaped it to what it is today and what it

will be in the future. Culture can span from various types of traditional mediums. For us,

the Philippines tends to lean towards western influence because we have quite a lot of

objects, language and concepts that derived from them in our country. Fast-food chains

like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and KFC originated from the United States and spread

throughout here. We also have Netflix subscriptions where we have access to all kinds

of media varying from children’s shows, action, adventure and horror. Culture in a way

with media affects my family in turn influence how we see things and then affects our

lifestyle. Then again just like the point above in the political paragraph, can have

consequences. Adding in more of another country’s culture may blur the line between

ours and theirs or worse completely take in their cultural life style and forget what we

currently have. Moving onto the Asian example of cultural Globalization. Stated above

again, about Singapore. We quite literally enjoyed our time there more than anywhere

else as if we were all in a state of wanderlust. Then there is also the Korean drama

shows that my mother tends to watch, sometimes binging on it from time to time. Even
though we enjoy the variety of cultures presented to us such as Singaporean, Western,

and Korean. Not inherently bad, but the fact that the food, entertainment and other

recreational objects or things that these countries offer are much interesting than our

own, thus we forget to focus on our culture and traditions. One good example of this is

watching movies produced by first-world countries like the United States of America are

frequently watched by my family when they have the chance to and another example is

some of us watch Korean drama while not paying attention to our own shows. Due to

this we develop a kind of mentality, one that feels like we just explored something new

and now we need more of it. Not only that, the products we buy also come from another

country, though we don’t exactly follow trends as much since it is not something we do

too much.

Going over about Globalization, I think it is an instrumental part for the world’s

development and for people to accept one another as well. Being exposed and

influenced by a variety of cultures has more benefits than there are downsides as long

as we don’t loose sight of ourselves and be aware of said consequences, we will be

fine. That feeling of wanderlust has still yet to precede, by reading into Globalization I

may have set my sights on more things to look into from other countries, to go out of my

comfort zone and be more what I am right now. Currently, I am interested to see how

the world will grow and hope corruption does not take place in the future. In general,

Globalization has most likely shaped my way of thinking through introduction of many

foreign cultural, political and economic factors.