America Essay, Research Paper

The United Stated is currently the most influential country on the

face of the earth. Not only concerning the issues of money and business

but also our choices of music clothes and recreational activities.

Often times people think of countries such as Japan and China as

being completely different. We think they have strange dress and odd

customs, they are thought to have a completely different culture than

ours. You will find that that is incorrect, the ir cultures are actually

very similar to ours. Because of the amount of clothing, food and other

products that we ship out of this country every day our culture has no

choice but to ooze out of our borders onto foreign soil. For example you

could walk i nto a modern Japanese society expecting a bunch of old people

kneeling on dirt floors wearing kimonos and drinking green tea but

actually find a society of youths wearing Levi jeans, trendy clothes,

listening to American pop-rock music, and eating Big Mac s that they just

bought from down the street at their local McDonalds. You could also find

a group of people watching a football game and gossiping about the new

movie with ?that really hot American chick in it?. Of course all

countries have different h olidays and traditions, they eat different

foods and have customs that seem strange to us but more and more their

ways seem to be becoming like those of us here in the United States of

America.

The question asks if I think that the influence of our ?pop

culture? will continue. I think that that all depends on weather or not

we remain the worlds ?super power? in the future. I think that the reason

that we are imitated by other countries is bec ause of our wealth and

power. It is sort of like the United States is the most popular girl in

school. She has a bunch of followers who dress like her, do their hair

like her and claim to like the same music and movies as her. But no

matter how hard th ey try they can never quite keep up to her ever

changing style. Much like the patterns of the countries that try to

imitate the U.S. If you look closely at these cultures you will notice

that the clothes that they wear were the clothes that we wore ten years

ago and I wouldn?t be surprised if they are groovin? to the sounds of the

eighties as we speak.

I often wonder why we haven?t picked up much of any other

countries culture. Sure, there have been fads like the Macarena and the

on going like for foods such as tacos and chop suey, but every thing is

always somehow Americanized. I suppose it?s beca use we are so

preoccupied with our own appearances and our countries image that we don?t

have time to stop and look around. Or maybe its the fact that we are

trying to convince ourselves that everybody wants to be like us and that

is how it will always b e.

No matter what happens though, there is always a new popular girl

that everybody wants to be like. Her power dies down and the followers

find some one else to imitate. I think that sooner or later, maybe not in

my lifetime, that the awe of the United S tates will die down along with

the influence and the power on other countries and they will find someone

else to follow or maybe they will gain the power and self respect to be

their own nation, to not pay attention to what everybody else is doing and

may be people will start to follow them.