SAO GABRIEL DA CACHOEIRA, Brazil — In the far western Amazon, three days by wooden-hulled boat from the nearest city, the modern world seems a long way away — until a plastic Coca-Cola bottle comes floating down the Rio Negro.
On the vast, forested Brazilian outback, 40,000 villagers in 22 ethnic groups share this Tennessee-sized Indian reservation. Though missionaries arrived long ago, there are few prospectors to soil the rivers with mercury and corrupt the Indians with alcohol and easy money. Logging is limited.
Each day, villagers paddle to their fields in canoes to clear jungle and plant banana and manioc. Entire families process the potato-like tuber into flour by grinding down the root and baking it over a fire, using utensils of woven straw.
Even here, however, globalization has arrived.
Most villages have TV sets; pay phones and the Internet may be next. A poster with a childlike cartoon warns Indians about AIDS: "You need to stay healthy to row your canoe and go fishing. To stay healthy you need to use condoms."
Some aspects of the outside world are virtually meaningless here. Romario Rabello Martins, a villager piloting his boat to his family's farm field, wears a New York Mets cap but has no idea what the logo means — or even what NY stands for.
His mother, Dona Quentina, hauls her belongings in a straw basket strapped to her head — but wears a mass-produced cotton print dress tied on with plastic garbage bag.
Orlando Jose de Oliveira, president of the Indigenous People's Federation, worries that too much change may be bad.
When TV came along, he recalled, Indians stopped working and watched soap operas.
"We're not saying 'No' to the outside world," he says, "but we have to remember how to be Indians as well."
Then he puts on his helmet and drives off on his Honda motorcycle.
— By Associated Press Writer Michael Astor
BUTRANWALI, Pakistan (AP) — On the mud floor of their village house, 5-year-old Imran punches holes in leather and passes the strips to his uncle, 20-year-old Khalid Mahmood, who stitches them together into soccer balls that will end up on the playing fields of Europe and America.
Working under a single bare light bulb, they take an hour to produce a ball. There's a half-hour break for lunch, and five brief stops for Muslim prayers. Work continues until sunset.
There are three kinds of soccer balls, Mahmood explains. Some have the brand names of companies like Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola. Most are exported, he says.
In Umar Kot, a nearby village, 11-year-old Mohammed Ashraf stitches a tough piece of leather. He scrunches up his face as he presses the needle through. Inscribed on the inside of the leather are seven words:
"This ball is not made by children."
— By Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmad
SINGAPORE (AP) — Jose Raymond wants Singaporeans to give up one of their favorite delicacies: shark fin soup.
Western environmental groups have been wagging fingers at Singapore and Hong Kong, whose Chinese populations are major consumers of shark fins. They point out that fishermen slice off the fins and toss the fish back in the water to die slowly.
Raymond, who edits Asian Geographic magazine, and his fellow campaigners are preparing to tour Singapore's elementary schools to show children a grisly, blood-drenched video of fishermen slicing off shark's fins.
"The kids need to see how brutal it is," he says. "They wouldn't want their pets treated that way."
But many Singaporeans see it as a Western intrusion on their own cultural values. Shark fin is a vital ingredient of wedding banquets and business dinners. In affluent Singapore, shark fin soup can cost more than $75 a bowl.
At Lau Pasat food center on March 15, sales manager Christina Tan said she wasn't giving it up.
"During a Chinese wedding, if you don't serve the shark's fin soup, people will whisper: 'Oh, they don't have enough money to pay for shark's fin,"' she explained.
Even without shark fin soup, tiny Singapore is an international culinary crossroads. It offers "everything from Pizza Hut to Korean barbecue," says vegetable vendor Janet Chia.
Patricia Pang, a fruit seller, says her mangos came from Thailand, papayas from Malaysia, oranges from California, apples from New Zealand and bananas from the Philippines.
"I don't think anything comes from Singapore," she says.
Nowadays, you don't have to travel far for a taste of the world. Helena, Mont., a city of 25,000, has five Chinese eateries, three Mexican, two Italian, a Thai restaurant and a Greek sandwich shop.
— By Associated Press Writers Dean Visser and Regan Morris in Singapore and Len Iwanski in Helena
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The port of Charleston offers a panoramic view of how globalization has changed America. In the early days of the Carolina colony, rice, indigo and slaves moved through the port. Nowadays it's anything from BMWs made in South Carolina to chicken feet for Asian markets.
At midmorning March 15, as a steady rain falls on the East Coast's second biggest container port, rows of BMWs stand ready for loading near the preserved facade of a 19th century rice mill. Caterpillar machinery from Decatur, Ill., is bound for France and Germany. Air conditioners await shipment to the Middle East.
On the incoming side are Porsche cars and bales of natural rubber from Southeast Asia, headed for Michelin tire plants in South Carolina — 100,000 tons a year.
The containers being unloaded from the steamship Jaguar Max, just in from South America, represent the way the world now moves its goods from continent to continent, port to port and door to door. They are painted with names like Yang Ming, Cosco and K-Line — shipping lines from Taiwan, China and Japan.
About 22,000 containers are stacked at the terminal. Some 6,000 trucks come and go each day. Ships sailing from here serve 140 countries.
— By Associated Press Writer Bruce Smith
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — In a chaotic market in the world's highest capital, Indian women in traditional bowler hats hawk fish and fruit, and the many Senor Lees of "Little Korea" are thriving.
Nearly all the clothes shops in the market are owned by South Koreans, and most of them are named Lee.
Bolivian workers, mainly in their 20s, cut cloth shipped from South Korea and organize the rolls that fill the shops. The material is sold to Bolivian factories and individuals, much of it sewn into soccer shirts for school-age children in Bolivia.
"Little Korea" began a few years ago, as word spread among South Koreans that in La Paz, 11,583 feet above sea level, there was a lucrative market for cloth.
One store owner is Hung In Lee. He took Spanish classes in Seoul before coming, and now calls himself Mario Lee. His two Bolivian workers run the shop when he visits his family in Korea once a year.
"I plan to return to Korea once I've made lots of money here," he says.
Maria Chiri, a 25-year-old Bolivian who runs the business next store for another Senor Lee, says her boss drops by occasionally. She can't remember his first name, though. "It's very difficult," she says.
— By Associated Press Writer Vanessa Arrington