Mickey Mouse Comes To China
More proof that the world is getting smaller. Mickey Mouse is coming to China.
I don’t put that much faith in the world’s governments wanting to get along better, but I have a great deal of faith that the citizens of the world do.
Everyday we are more and more connected to each other. You will find products from all over the world sold in the markets in every country. Through the miracle of the Internet we can communicate with people from all over the world. The more we interact, the better we get to know each other, and the more we learn we all have the same dream of a better world for our children.
How many other countries do you think you have communicated with people from, in any manner, this year? Which countries?
How many different countries do you think you have visited over your life?
From the article from the NYT, by Brooks Barnes
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/business/global/04disney.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
“After a courtship of about 20 years, the Walt Disney Company has won approval from the central government of China to build a Disneyland-style theme park in Shanghai, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said Tuesday.
The agreement for a Shanghai Disneyland is a landmark deal that carries enormous cultural and financial implications. Analysts estimate the initial park — not including hotels and resort infrastructure — will cost $3.5 billion, making it one of the largest-ever foreign investments in China.
The initial resort, with a mix of shopping areas, hotels and a Magic Kingdom-style theme park, will sprawl across 1,000 acres of the city’s Pudong district — with the theme park occupying about 100 of those acres. It would be a little bigger than Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and on par with the parks in Paris and Tokyo. It is expected to open in five or six years.
Disney’s plans are ambitious: If further development of the resort happens as expected over the coming decades — still a big if — it will encompass more than 1,700 acres and have a capacity rivaling Disney World in Florida, which attracts about 45 million annual visitors.
The company’s goal is to create an engine that will drive demand among China’s 1.3 billion residents for other Disney products, from video games to Broadway-style shows to DVDs. Disney typically relies on the creation of new Disney TV channels to pump its brand abroad, but China’s limits on foreign media have made that impossible. The approval, notably, did not come with concessions from China on the television front.
Mr. Iger called the approval “a very significant milestone” in a statement, taking care to praise China as “one of the most dynamic, exciting and important countries in the world.” A spokeswoman declined to elaborate on details. Throwing open its doors to such a uniquely American — and permanent — entertainment experience is a milestone for China, which has aggressively protected its culture from Westernization in general and Hollywood in particular. Only 20 non-Chinese films are allowed to be shown in theaters each year, for instance, and those are often edited.
“Disney, perhaps the most iconic American brand of all, is supercharged in this department,” said Orville Schelll, director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations.
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November 4, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Indian Lake Papa
Countries I have communicated with – this year – 2009: USA, Canada, China, Jamaica, Sweden, Australia, Cape Verde, Paupau New Guinea, Philippines, Spain, South Africa, Kenya, and CT !!
November 4, 2009 at 9:05 pm
edfromct
Wow, Papa you have been communicating with people from all over the world. I know CT is a special state, but I don’t think we can call it it’s own country. Although looking at our leaders in Washington many residents wish it was.
I have meet people from all of those countries over my life, except Paupau New Guinea.
November 5, 2009 at 2:11 am
lovewillbringustogether
‘The more we interact, the better we get to know each other, and the more we learn we all have the same dream of a better world for our children.’
i think we should ALL adopt this as our life’s motto – it would make us think twice before agreeing to go to war with another nation at the ‘request’ of our respective governments’.
We might then realise that it is our governments that separate the people’s of the world in order for the elite to profit off the work of the citizens.
and that they breed the fear they need us to be in a permanent state of to achieve this end.
The people of Afghanistan and Iraq are largely as we are – more concerned with living a healthy peaceful life with their family’s than in destroying a nation they are unlikely to ever see in a lifetime.
Because of our fear we often fail to let them and make their life much harder than it should be. Power hungry groups can then take advantage of this to gain support and money/people to support them in their grab for power over others.
This happens in their country and in our own.
People are generally much the same in the ‘basics’ in whatever country they live.
So far this year i have communicated with folk from Scotland, England, Czech Republic, South Africa, The Phillipines, Jamaica, America, Canada, Nepal and Israel. i have had visits to my blog from over 80 separate countries! (Your’s being by far the largest in number of individual visitors)
in terms of actual visits of longer than a day i would only have spent time in 7 to date. The people in them were all largely concerned with the same things for the same reasons.
i believe that a nation’s people is capable of respecting and getting on with another nation’s people when they meet face to face – it’s so very easy to believe a ‘country’ is evil if we never talk to it’s citizens and understand what is important to them individually but believe the lies we are shown about ‘them’ by those who profit from our hate and fear.
<B
November 5, 2009 at 6:22 pm
gchyayles
I fall under the international spectrum so there’s been quite a bit of that in my lifetime
Being in America is interacting with a different country 
This year I went to Dubai and Pakistan so interacted with various individuals from both countries. I’ve also communicated with people from Africa, Germany, England, and Jamaica this year.
In my lifetime I have been to England (born and raised), Pakistan (home country), Spain, Turkey, UAE, Brussels, France, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada (for me that was definitely a whole different experience since I didn’t grow up in America). Oh yeah…that reminds me…America
November 6, 2009 at 5:41 pm
edfromct
While most Americans move around, it’s mostly within the US. You have lived many different countries and clutures. You are truely a child of the world gchyayles.
November 5, 2009 at 9:00 pm
danielle
It is amazing when I think of all the people we are known or a friend of a friend knows. Just tonight someone asked me if I knew of any missionaries in a certain place that we really have no connections with…and I did.
I’ve been to England, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The list to get larger…
November 6, 2009 at 5:49 pm
edfromct
I guess a missionary has to always have their bags ready to pack.
Missionaries are like one big family, with branches all over the world. You could say the only home a missionary needs is the one with their God in their heart.