Yaodong Sun
Nicole Banas
English 812
10/20/13
Essay 1 (draft3)
Americanization in China
Nowadays, when Chinese people mention about American culture, it is inevitable not to be
reminded of images of Hollywood movie, iPhones and the highest GDP in the world. The
aggression of American culture in traditional Chinese culture acts as an invisible force in our
lives-it can either attract people to accept it or repel it. Gradually, one of the universal issue that
draw growing concern is whether it is benefit of American culture to have affected China’s
development. In Mark Rice-Oxley’s article “In 2,000 Years, Will the World Remember Disney or
Plato?” he emphasizes that “U.S. ideals get transmitted such as individual rights, freedom of
speech, and respect for women and local cultures are enriched. On the other hand, materialism or
worse becomes the message and local traditions get crushed” (163). From my point of view,
American culture has more negative impact in terms of fast food, entertainment, commercial
products than positive parts in China.
The swift expansion of American fast food has led to a severe health issue for Chinese people.
It is an undoubted fact that a strong popularity of American fast food has appeared everywhere in
the world. “Few countries have yet to be touched by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Starbucks
recently opened up a new front in South America, and everyone’s got a Hard Rock Café T-shirt
from somewhere exotic” (Rice-Oxley 164). There is an increasing number of American food in
other countries. Despite the striking of regional food, this also provided a convenient condition
for regional customer who inspire to try foreign food in their own country. No matter when they
want to try American food, they do not consider the distance and expenditure to get there, what
people only need to do is driving a car to get there because American food restaurant pretty close
to residents. However, a social problem is that fast food caused a healthy issue in China. In this
article “Western Fast Food Chains Flourish in China, Rates of Obesity and Diabetes Skyrocket”
written by Judy Bankman and Elektra Alivisatos, they state that American food with high fat,
simple carbohydrates, sugar and little nutritional density would be harmful to customers’
heath, which is extremely different form Chinese traditional food processed
by plant-based protein, low cholesterol, some dietary fat. In this situation,
obesity is growing up a social problem in China, especially, this social issue
bring about the risk of chronic recessive disease to even younger people.
Furthermore, they also stated that approximately 12 percent of Chinese
