Tag: Globalization

Categories
Misc.

Google Quechua

Thanks to Google Quechua, Indigenous people in the Andes can now search the Web in their native tongue.

Economist:

Estimates of the prevalence of Quechua vary widely. In Peru, there are thought to be 3m to 4.5m speakers, with others in Bolivia and Ecuador. The language has long been in slow decline, chiefly because the children of migrants to the cities rarely speak it. But it is now getting a lot more attention.

In recent months, Google has launched a version of its search engine in Quechua while Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows and Office. Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui, who last year translated “Don Quijote” into Quechua, recalls that a nationalist military government in the 1960s ordered that the language be taught in all public schools. It didn’t happen, because of lack of money to train teachers. By law its official use—and bilingual education—is now limited to highland areas where it is predominant.

After spending a year in Ecuador, I can tell you this: I know precisely two words of Quechua, both of which have made their way into everyday Ecuadorian parlance (at least in the sierra): 1) “chuchaqi” (which means hungover), and 2) “cha-chai” (which means cold).

Related oldie-but-goodie: Ecuadorian slang.

Categories
Misc.

“Globish”

The New York Times’s Noam Cohen has an interesting story about efforts to advance a simplified version of English to be used around the world — what some are calling “globish.”

When its president proposed last month to ban English words like “helicopter,” “chat” and “pizza,” Iran became the latest country to try to fight the spread of English as a de facto global language.

But with interest in English around the world growing stronger, not weaker — stoked by American cultural influences and advertising, the increasing numbers of young people in developing countries and the spread of the Internet, among other factors — there are some linguists and others who say: why fight it? Instead, the argument goes, English, particularly the simpler form of the language used by most nonnative speakers, should be embraced.

Esperanto teachers world-wide must be totally bummed out by this turn of events.

The Globalization of Soccer

To the People:

The Prospect reviews superstar Senegalese footballer Patrick Vieira’s new autobiography and says it “confirms that soccer beats banking as the world’s most globalised industry.” I’d say drugs, but soccer and banking make fine choices, too.

“Vieira was only 19 and already captain of Cannes when, in 1995, he was bundled into a helicopter and flown to AC Milan’s club headquarters to sign a contract on the spot. He had no idea what the sums in Italian lire meant—not very much, it turned out—but signed anyway. His angry agent quickly negotiated a new contract, for about £300,000 a year, or four times as much as he was getting at Cannes. At Milan, Vieira rarely played. Watching the team from the stands, he got to know the Alsatian Frenchman Arsène Wenger, who was a regular spectator despite coaching in Japan at the time. When Wenger joined Arsenal, he persuaded Vieira to be his first signing. In fact, the player arrived weeks before the manager did, and was initially deposited in the reserves.”

By my count that’s a Senegalese guy captaining a French team, taken to Italy to play. He sits while in Italy, gets noticed by a French guy who works in Japan, and together they move on to England. Cool.

Full Prospect review here.

Categories
Misc.

Bolivia, Evo Morales, and Market-Dominant Minorities

According to the NYT’s Juan Forero, coca-legalization proponent and indigenous coalition leader Evo Morales just might become the next president of Bolivia.

The election of Morales in Bolivia would represent the triumph of indigenous groups over the minority white elite ruling class — as well as the rejection of what’s viewed as American imperialism and the encroachment of globalization on poor people’s lives throughout the southern Andes.

This monumental shift, should it reach fruition, would mirror the central thesis of Amy Chua’s prescient tome “World On Fire”: that the world’s so-called “market-dominant minorities” — the wealthy whites, in the case of Bolivia — become enriched by globalization while the poor majority indigenous population becomes increasingly destitute and disenfranchised. Class tensions, in this scenario, are exacerbated; violence erupts.

The ascent of Morales in Bolivia, if it happens, may signal a sea change in Andean politics. Only time will tell; could Peru and Ecuador, which also have sizeable Indian populations, be next?

Categories
Misc.

British Backpackers Take Call Center Jobs in India

Here’s an interesting twist on Western firms outsourcing jobs to India: British backpackers have started taking call center jobs there in order to save funds for traveling or extend their current trips.

Among the first to land in the subcontinent was Kenny Rooney, a 28-year-old from Livingston in Scotland. He had worked in a call centre at home, but after nine months in India says he does not want to return. “This is an incredible country,” he said, speaking from Bombay. “I have had a brilliant time and met people from all over the world…”

Young Britons of Indian origin are also finding the jobs offer them a chance to rediscover their roots. Among them is Hasmita Patel, who is also working in Pune. “This has been the best thing I’ve ever done,” said Ms Patel, from Leicester. “It has really allowed me to see the country and get to know people. I’ve learned so much about myself.”

(Via BoingBoing.)

Las Estrellas de Lucha Libre Mexicana

Here’re some delightful photos of Mexico City wrestlers. My favorite of these Lucha Libre stars is either Super Porky (pictured), Super Raton, or Maximo — though Maximo could really use a longer skirt. (Sadly, La Liga Mexicana doesn’t feature any cholitas de Bolivia.)

African Boots of Beijing

Africans Boots of Beijing is a documentary film about an African soccer team in Beijing. The film was produced, filmed and edited by Luke Mines and Jeremy Goldkorn, long-time residents of Beijing from the USA and South Africa.

For ten years Afrika United F.C. has been a force in the amateur soccer leagues of Beijing, China. It is also a fascinating window into the growing African community in Beijing and the cross pollination among cultures that is occurring as the world grows ever smaller.

(Via Danwei.)

China and India: Feet of Clay?


“China and India, still desperately poor. Chinese children in a village pick garbage (above); An Indian child in a slum (below).”

Pranab Bardhan, writing in Yale Global Online:

The media, particularly the financial press, are all agog over the rise of China and India in the international economy. After a long period of relative stagnation, these two countries, nearly two-fifths of the world population, have seen their incomes grow at remarkably high rates over the last two decades. Journalists have referred to their economic reforms and integration into the world economy in all kinds of colorful metaphors: giants shaking off their “socialist slumber,” “caged tigers” unshackled, and so on. Columnists have sent breathless reports from Beijing and Bangalore about the inexorable competition from these two new whiz kids in our complacent neighborhood in a “flattened,” globalized, playing field. Others have warned about the momentous implications of “three billion new capitalists,” largely from China and India, redefining the next phase of globalization.

While there is no doubt about the great potential of these two economies in the rest of this century, severe structural and institutional problems will hobble them for years to come. At this point, the hype about the Indian economy seems patently premature, and the risks on the horizon for the Chinese polity – and hence for economic stability – highly underestimated.

(Via A&L Daily.)

Lighten Up, Hugo

BBC:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged families not to mark Halloween, calling it a US custom alien to the South American nation.

“Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches. This is contrary to our way,” Mr Chavez said during his weekly radio and TV show.

He also said Halloween was a “game of terror”, the AP news agency reported.

Venezuela

Don’t Hate on Wal-Mart

SF Chron:

For all the criticism that Wal-Mart receives for its low wages and minimal health benefits, the retail giant says more than 11,000 people in the Bay Area are clamoring to get a job at its new Oakland store.

The country’s largest employer plans to welcome customers into its 148, 000-square-foot store on Edgewater Drive next Wednesday, and it says it already has filled 350 of its 400 openings.

I have zero problems with Wal-Mart. In fact, more to the point: I like Wal-Mart. They have a lot of stuff there. For cheap.

Okay, so they’re anti-union. That’s not cool. But let’s face it: the labor movement is stuck in the 1950’s: they’re battling corporations with anachronistic tools that don’t work in today’s globalized world. Unions don’t matter when big companies can simply shutter their stores and move to another “right to work” state — or to a third-world country.

The people who complain about how evil Wal-Mart is are usually rich enough that they can shop wherever they want. And they can rail against the company’s labor record because they’d never ever be reduced to actually working there, so the issue’s purely academic. The truth is that if you want to support the working stiff, you should be all for Wal-Mart, since they offer goods for lower prices than anywhere else.*

I feel the same way about McDonald’s and Starbucks, two corporate behmoths similarly disliked by the patchouli-wearing trustafarian crowd. You know what? I like a quarter pounder with cheese every once in a while. And also, I think Starbucks coffee tastes pretty good.

In the third-world countries I’ve visited and lived in, the local folks — despite what the anti-globalization, Che Guevara-T-shirt-wearing college kids claim — feel a similar affinity for Mickey Dee’s and Starbucks. They’re good places to work. And they provide pretty good products.

It doesn’t surprise me, then, that the Oakland Wal-Mart is getting swamped with job applications. Even in the People’s Republik of California.

*Another anti-Wal-Mart argument is that they use their size and clout to unfairly put independent hardware stores out of business. Yes, that’s unfortunate. But you can no more blame Wal-Mart for this than you can blame cheap imported cars for the troubles of the American auto industry. Them’s the breaks in a free market economy.

Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Starbucks