In Shanghai I found that the television show Sesame Street has been redesigned by Chinese educators to teach Chinese values and traditions. "We borrowed an American box," one told me, "and put Chinese content into it." In India, where there are more than 400 languages and several very strict religions, McDonald's serves mutton instead of beef and offers a vegetarian menu acceptable to even the most orthodox Hindu.
在上海，我发现中国教育者改编了“芝麻街”电视节目，用以传达中国人的价值观和传统。一位教育者对我说:“我们借用美国的包装，但装进去的却是中国内容。”在有400多种语言和几种严格宗教戒律的印度，麦当劳出售的是羊肉而不是牛肉汉堡，甚至最正统的印度教信徙都可以接受他们销售的素食食品。
The critical mass of teenagers—800 million in the world—with time and money to spend is one of the powerful engines of merging global cultures. Kids travel, they hang out, and above all they buy stuff. I'm sorry to say I failed to discover who was the first teenager to put his baseball cap on backward. Or the first one to copy him. But I do know that rap music, which sprang from the inner-city ghettos, began making big money only when rebellious white teenagers started buying it. But how can anyone predict what kids are going to want? Companies urgently need to know, so consultants have sprung up to forecast trends. They're called "cool hunters," and Amanda Freeman took me in hand one morning to explain how it works.
有时间、有金钱的8亿青少年是融合全球文化的关键及主要动力之一。孩子们喜欢旅行、闲游，重要的是他们拥有购买实力。可遗憾的是，我不知道哪个青少年第一个反戴棒球帽，或者哪个青少年第一个模仿他。但是我确实知道只有当叛逆的白人青少年开始买票时，起源于市内黑人贫民区的说唱乐才开始因此大赚。然而，人们怎么预测孩子们的需求呢？许多公司迫切要了解孩子们的需求，因此出现了“猎酷人”顾问，由他们来预测未来趋势。阿曼达·弗里曼—天上午拉着我，揭示了奥妙所在。
Amanda, who is 22, works for a New York-based company called Youth Intelligence and has come to Los Angeles to conduct surveys, whose results go to many important clients. She has shoulder-length brown hair and is wearing a knee-length brocade skirt. Amanda looks very cool to me, but she says no. "The funny thing about my work is that you don't have to be cool to do it," she says. "You just have to have the eye."
阿曼达，22岁，在总部设在纽约的一家叫作“青年情报”公司工作。她到洛杉矶进行调査，为很多重要客户搜取信息。她棕发披肩，织锦裙及膝。对我来说，阿曼达很酷，可她不以为然：“我的工作有趣之处就在于你不必装酷，可你必须有眼光。”