Critical Cultural Analysis: Globalization and Individual

Complexity

By: Kevin Sprague

Destination: Chengdu

KEVINChicagoCatholic FamilyTeacher

ALEXMiamiCuban ParentsTeacher

FLAME( Ran HuaQiang)Sichuan, ChinaSon of a party foremanTechnology Salesman

Similarities Daily Life demands and Personal Goals

Participation in Multiple Discourses

Degrees of Separation: connected through Activities and Groups

At least a little critical of our own cultures

Family is a complicated thing

Travel

Struggled to learn a language and gained from it

Cultural values may swing us in certain directions, but we all face the same situations

Globalization

Curiosity

TravelKnowled

ge

Choice

Self CriticismMiddle Class Males of a Certain Age

Perspectives, Options and Impositions

Gender

Generation Class

Ethnicity

English as a Lingua FrancaEnglish doesn’t belong to anyone anymore

Additive Identity

Respect for Nonstandard Dialects

English is the tool for global communication, naturally we use it to explore global culture

Hopeful

Now, at 30, I’ve seen the discourse on race change dramatically

Gay rights have exploded around the world in the last year

Nationalism has dropped as a force

Continue to witness(and be a part of )change

ThanksTo see the earth as it truly is, small and blue

and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

— Archibald MacLeish, American poet, 'Riders on earth together, Brothers in eternal cold,' front page of the New York Times, Christmas Day, 25 December 1968http://www.spacequotations.com/earth.html