Para. 29

Early on I realized that I was going to need some type of compass to guide me through the wilds of global culture. So when I was in Los Angeles, I sought out Alvin Toffler, whose book Future Shock was published in 1970. In the nearly three decades since, he has developed and refined a number of interesting ideas, explained in The Third Wave, written with his wife, Heidi.

I assumed my talent-show fiasco. play the piano again: Since my talent show ended in a ridiculous failure, I took it for granted that my mother had given up on me and would not make me play the piano again.

Q1: Paraphrase the first sentence of this paragraph.

A1: From the very beginning I knew I need some theory or guideline to help me in my study of global culture or globalization, to guide me through such a great variety of cultural phenomena.

Para. 30

What do we know about the future now, I asked, that we didn’t know before? “We now know that order grows out of chaos,” he answered immediately. “You cannot have significant change, especially on the scale of Russia or China, without conflict. Not conflicts between East and West, or North and South, but ‘wave’ conflicts between industrially dominant countries and predominantly agrarian countries, or conflicts within countries making a transition from one to the other.”

Q1: What did Toffler mean when he said “order grows out of chaos”?

A1: He meant that significant change came as a result of conflict By conflict he meant wave conflicts, that is, conflicts between modes of production.

Q2: How does Toffler define the current conflict?

A2: He holds that the current conflicts are not conflicts between East and West, nor between North and South but between dominantly industrial countries and dominantly agrarian countries plus internal conflicts within countries that are partly one and partly the other.

Q3: What do you think of Toffler’s analysis of conflict and world order?

A3: Toffler holds that conflict takes place between agrarian countries and industrialized countries. But the industrialized countries are the developed countries so it is very similar to the idea of North-South conflict between the developing countries and the industrialized countries. To take out the political element in the conflict is not in accord with real situation and therefore is incorrect. And it is over-simplification to say that world civilizations today can be ascribed to three types: agrarian, industrial and knowledge-based. But it may be valid to say that the problems in various civilizations are rooted in the modes of production.

The trisection-of-power concept fails to take into consideration the distribution of political, economic, military power of the world. So it is not a true reflection of the world situation.

Para. 31

Waves, he explained, are major changes in civilization. The first wave came with the development of agriculture, the second with industry. Today we are in the midst of the third, which is based on information. In 1956 something new began to happen, which amounts to the emergence of a new civilization. Toffler said, “It was in that year that U.S. service and knowledge workers outnumbered blue-collar factory workers. In 1957 Sputnik went up. Then jet aviation became commercial, television became universal, and computers began to be widely used. And with all these changes came changes in culture.

Q1: How does Toffler define “wave”?

A1: Toffler defines waves as major changes in civilization. The first wave came with the development of agriculture (the use of iron tools in historical materialism); the second with industry; the third is based on information.

Para. 32

“What’s happening now is the trisection of world power,’” he continued. “Agrarian nations on the bottom, smokestack countries in between, and knowledge-based economies on top.” There are a number of countries—Brazil, for example—where all three civilizations coexist and collide.

Q1: What is Toffler's analysis of the current international order?

A1: He holds that the present order is a trisection order. According to him, the agrarian nations are at the bottom, knowledge-based economics on the top, with industrialized countries in between.

Para. 33

“Culturally well see big changes,” Toffler said. “You’re going to turn on your TV and get Nigerian TV and Fijian TV in your own language.” Also, some experts predict that the TV of the future, with 500 cable channels, may be used by smaller groups to foster their separate, distinctive cultures and languages.

Q1: Is it possible that in the future small groups might be able to use TV to foster their separate distinctive culture and language?

A1: Perhaps. Once 500 channels were available costs would be greatly reduced. In the U.S. government licensing insistence on some TV access being reserved for broadcasts in the public interest would help a small group, say the Navaho Indians with about 40,000 speakers of their tribal language, to transmit programs in that language. But there are also political and cultural constraints. Some linguists predict that many of the languages used today would become extinct in the not too faraway future.

Para. 34

“People ask, ‘Can we become third wave and still remain Chinese?’ Yes,” Toffler says. “You can have a unique culture made of your core culture. But you’ll be the Chinese of the future, not of the past.”

Q1: What is Toffler’s view on the changes of culture as a result of the third wave?

A1: Toffler holds that in the future, there will not be just one culture but the cultures that remain will not be the same. They have been reformed.

Q2: What is meant by Toffler when he says that you will be the Chinese of the future, not of the past?

A2: When he says Chinese, he is not talking about the people but the Chinese culture. Of course the Chinese culture in the information age cannot be the same as the culture in Confucian times.

Paras. 35

Linking: This is what the spread of global culture ultimately means. Goods will continue to move—from 1987 to 1995 local economies in California exported 200 percent more products, businesses in Idaho 375 percent more. People move: It is cheaper for businesses to import talented employees than to train people at home. Ideas move: In Japan a generation of children raised with interactive computer games has sensed, at least at the cyber level, new possibilities. “The implicit message in all this,” wrote Kenichi Ohmae, “is that it is possible to actively take control of one’s situation or circumstances and, thereby, to change one’s fate. For the Japanese, this is an entirely new way of thinking.”

Q1: Comment on the statement of “It is cheaper for businesses to import talented employees than to train people at home”.

A1: This is called brain drain. Many third world countries are experiencing such a brain drain. When we say that in the Silicon Valley of the United States many scientists and engineers are of Chinese or Indian origin, we are talking about brain drain. Every year, about one-third of the university graduates from some of China’s top notch universities apply for visas to the United States. This is another proof of China’s universities undertaking the responsibility of laying the groundwork for talented people who will work in U. S. high-tech industries.

Para. 36

Change: It’s reality, not a choice. But what will be its true driving force? Cultures don’t become more uniform; instead, both old and new tend to transform each other. The late philosopher Isaiah Berlin believed that, rather than aspire to some utopian ideal, a society should strive for something else: “not that we agree with each other,” his biographer explained, “but that we can understand each other.

Q1: What is function of the statement of “It’s reality, not a choice”?

A1: It serves as a recapitulation of the idea stated in Paragraph 2 and a re-emphasis of the point that globalization is already a matter of life. It also serves as a bridge leading to the discussion of the driving force of globalization.

Q2: What is the main idea of this paragraph?

A2: The main idea is there will not be a uniform world culture in the future; the cultures will coexist and transform each other.

Q3: What does utopian ideal refer to?

A3: It is not clear but it may refer to a uniform world culture.

Para. 37

In Shanghai one October evening I joined a group gathered in a small, sterile hotel meeting room. It was the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and there were diplomats, teachers, and businessmen from many Western countries. Elegant women with lively children, single men, young fathers. Shalom Greenberg, a young Jew from Israel married to an American, was presiding over his first High Holy Days as rabbi of the infant congregation.

Q1: Why does the author mention her experience at a Jewish gathering in Shanghai?

A1: She wants to use the incident to prove different cultures can co-exist and learn from each other while maintaining their own identity.

A Jewish gathering on the eve of Yon Kippur, a Jewish Holy Day, in Shanghai, a Chinese city is evidence of cultural co-existence.

Para. 38-39

“It’s part of the Jewish history that Jews went all over the world,” Rabbi Greenberg reflected. “They received a lot from local cultures, but they also kept their own identity.

The solemn liturgy proceeded, unchanged over thousands of years and hundreds of alien cultures: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,” he intoned. I’m neither Jewish nor Chinese, but sitting there I didn’t feel foreign—I felt at home. The penitence may have been Jewish, but the aspiration was universal.

Q1: How do you understand the last sentence?

A1: The way of showing repentance might be peculiar to the Jews, but the strong desire of gaining forgiveness from God is common, shared by all.

Para. 40

Global culture doesn’t mean just more TV sets and Nike shoes. Linking is humanity’s natural impulse, its common destiny. But the ties that bind people around the world are not merely technological or commercial. They are the powerful cords of the heart.

Q1: How does the author conclude the article?

A1: In the concluding remark, the author makes clear her view of globalization. She points out the reason why globalization is inevitable — linking is humanity’s natural impulse. Here two words are worthy of our attention. The author is not talking about merging or fusion but linking and she says linking is a natural human desire. In other words, it is not something imposed on humanity. From this careful choice of words we get to know that there will not be a McWorld but a coexistence of transformed cultures, and these cultures are brought together not just by technology of business but more importantly by common aspiration and shared values.

Q2: What do you think of her conclusion?

A2: The concluding paragraph is short, consisting of four sentences (42 words). But they bring out important ideas which, in turn, are linked with the Shanghai experience. Therefore, the development of ideas and the conclusion emerge naturally and logically.