> First, the impact of
> Chinese culture will be necessarily limited by the fact that there is a
> practically impenetrable linguistic barrier.
No more so than any other language. Ideographic languages aren't necessarily more difficult than alphabetic languages; in some ways Chinese is simpler than English -- e.g. grammar.
> path quite a bit), but for now, films are about the only way cultural
> contact can be carried on, as Jacques mentioned, and this intercourse
> must be mediated by striking visual images and necessarily inadequate
> subtitles.
The spread of multinational culture is drastically homogenizing cultural experience, though -- one sees the same cappucino/Yuppie boutique/Airbus/Web culture everywhere. I suspect globalization and localization are two sides of the same coin.
-- DRR