High Context/Low Context Culture Clash in Diagrams

I received a funny email forward today, so I thought I’d share some of the diagrams with you.

The concept of “high context” and “low context” cultures was developed by British anthropologist Edward T Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. His ideas were discussed at length in some of my international education classes, and it reminds me that when I look at something completely different than others around me, that there is an underlying concept as to why. The diagrams below actually highlight a lot of the sterotypical differences between cultures that are “high context” (generally speaking more “eastern” cultures) and “low context” (again, very generally speaking “western” cultures).

The email forward said:

The images below have been done by a Chinese artist (Liu Young), who studied in Germany. These images show his version of the differences between Western and Eastern cultures in a very simple way.

BLUE=WEST RED=EAST

Opinion

Way of Life

Puncuality

Contacts

Anger

Party

Three Meals a Day

Queue When Waiting

I particularly like the party one, as often larger gatherings tend to evolve into everyone sitting in a circle in the living room singing songs and dancing. I also like the food diagram, since there have been many a hot summer day when a salad would have sufficed for dinner but instead my friend AD couldn’t live without chicken chili ;)