High context, low context

I'm in Beijing doing some intercultural work, and have been reminded of how easy it can be even for an American with years of experience in China to fall back into default cultural behaviors and fail to make adjustments.

Today I met with the "ayi" who used to take care of our children when we were living in Beijing from 2004–2007. I hadn't seen her since we'd left. I was eager to "get caught up" — a very American thing to do — and so I had invited her to a Starbucks not far from where she lives. I also wanted to give her some photos and artistic creations of my girls, though I didn't mention that.

The conversation was wonderful. At one point, however, she asked, seemingly out of the blue, "Are you all moving back to Beijing?" I answered no. "Oh. I thought that might be why you wanted to meet." No problem ensued, because we have a strong, and open, relationship that we developed over the years, but I still felt a bit of a heel for my blunder.

What's the blunder? Edward T. Hall, anthropologist and giant in the field of intercultural communication, in his 1976 classic Beyond Culture, described what he called "low-context" and "high-context" cultures. People from low-context cultures spell everything out, say things directly and explicitly; high context cultures rely more on background information - context - and "reading signs." I had told her that I wanted to see her and talk, which is exactly what I had intended. She, however, with her high-context background, thought there must be some underlying reason for my invitation that I hadn't stated. Her best guess was that we were moving back to Beijing.

Now, even in a low-context culture, people "read signs" and infer; it's just done with much greater frequency and consistency in high-context cultures. The difference, as always, is a matter of degree, not of kind.

This makes your life quite a bit more complicated than it might otherwise be as you navigate your way through your relationships with your Chinese partners and counterparts. Before you can begin to guess how someone might respond to something you say or don't say, you have to have some way of knowing, or at least guessing, what the background context is. This requires a resourcefulness, alertness, and agility, as well as a vast knowledge base, which few possess. You'll need to rely on many others to fill in the blanks for you.

But doing this difficult thinking before you blunder will reward you profoundly. You will be viewed as someone who "understands China," and will generate the "good feeling" that is so crucial to successful partnerships in China — more on this in future posts.