reading log

Reading log for "Americanization of Shadrach Cohen"

The Americanization of Shadrach Cohen by Bruno Lessing instantly reminds me of the widespread of the same phenomenon of Americanization among Chinese society especially during the past decade. It always interests me a lot to observe how different cultures compromise one another in a society.

We have gradually absorbed and are still absorbing everything, good or bad, related to western world, such as technology, fashion, diet, cosmetics and so on. By doing so, Chinese traditional values, inevitably, more or less, are lost or are not appreciated as much as they used to be. I am not trying to judge the negative or positive viewpoints of inter-cultures, since; the globalization of the world did facilitate, a great deal, the communication and also other essential parts of all people regardless of nationality, race, sex and so on. For me, each culture is beautiful, unique and irreplaceable. However, too much admiration for another culture is not good. For example, in this story, Abel and Gottlieb became too Americanized that they began to even disdain their own culture, considering it inferior. It is irony how it is actually their father in the end who taught them a precious lesson about life; business, discipline, earnest life and so on, something they had long left behind.

28.5.07 10:28