CULTURAL EXPERT: 1st post

CULTURAL EXPERT: YANTING!

articles:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2006/0609kofifootball.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2004/olympics0810.htm

When one mentions the Olympics and the World Cup, I can almost guarantee that nobody will be unfamiliar with. Both events are international sporting competitions that are held in different countries every four years for Olympics and every two years for the World Cup. How then, do we relate them with globalization?

In the first article, the writer, Kofi A Annan, mentioned that the World Cup actually makes the United Nations green with envy. This is a funny sight as a large international organization is actually jealous of a sporting organization, FIFA. But the truth is that they are not as popular as FIFA and the reason is that FIFA has more members than United Nations. Furthermore, soccer is a game that appeals to all, young or old, of all race and religions, and even though it may seem to appeal more to males, females do enjoy the sport.

Everyone talks about soccer, regardless of which team they support, they stay up till next morning just to see a group of people running over a little ball for 90 minutes. Soccer forges an identity amongst people, people become friends or ‘brothers’ if they know that the other person supports the same team as them, be it Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or even Tampines Rovers. Therefore, it is evident that soccer is a more than popular sport and it just cannot compare with the United Nations as they deal with international issues that does not exactly interest or appeal to the public. Thus, concluding that it is indeed globalization.

Similarly, Olympics is another event that almost everyone is the world knows of and fascinates them. Even though not everybody is a sportsman, they too, will catch the opening of the Olympics, the last man lighting up the stadium with the torch, blazing the whole area with the sporting sensation. It is, like the World Cup, an event that catches the attention of many, creating a topic of conversation when one is in school or at work. Thus, even those that do not have interests in sporting events are still interested as it is a big event that generates competition between countries just to host the event.

Even though the second article focuses on the Olympics being a platform to create and strengthen the identity among individual nations, writer, Emma Wensing also states that it is a global broadcast, indicating that it still relates to globalization. The reason being that almost the whole world will watch the exact happenings over television, and although some countries focus more on their national players, the competition is still the same, nobody watches a different one. That is globalization.

Your cultural expert, Yanting!