"I wanted to work for a foreign company so I could learn from experts. My life would be much harder if I didn't have this job. Now we can think about the future. If I can afford it, I want to send my son to study overseas — maybe Australia or the United States."
—Dang Thi Hai Yen, production manager at Vietnamese factory subcontracted by Nike Inc.
"People are ruled by big companies. We have to develop greater solidarity with poorer countries."
—Anna Jonasson, Swedish student, active in promoting globalization with human face.
"In 1994, there were 50 viruses. Now there are more than 56,000 viruses, and it is costing global businesses many billions of dollars."
—Radu Georgescu, chairman of GeCAD, a company in Bucharest, Romania, whose antivirus software is in use worldwide.
"Before you had to have big wads of sucres for just about anything. Now it's easy with dollars."
—Nelson Tello, merchant in Ecuador which has abandoned sucre, its national currency, for U.S. dollars.
"Renders useless one of the fundamental elements of our civilization."
—Greek intellectuals condemning use of Latin characters in Greek script to facilitate Internet communication.
"The main thing I will bring back from this is knowledge, more knowledge. Once home I will teach what I learned here. Like others do in other parts of the world. That is globalization."
—Eitvydas Jokubauskis, lab manager at Lithuanian brewery, after being coached in beer-tasting at Carlsberg headquarters in Denmark.
"We buy these pizzas because my son loves them. And it is on sale, so that's why we came to buy it now. I like to buy Slovak products, because I feel that I am supporting our people and their jobs. Our products are just as good as foreign ones, but we do buy foreign products as well — mostly when they are on sale."
—Pavlina Sebestova, shopper at Tesco, British supermarket in Slovakia.
"Globalization is both good and bad. There is a risk for our jobs, but there is also a possibility to reach the whole world with our products. There have to be set rules, ethical rules, and that is something everyone shares."
—Joel Zenkert, trade union representative at Ericsson mobile communications plant in Sweden.
"Bubu, cuicui, bobo"
—Chinese for "snap, crackle, pop."