Greetings and Interactions within Different Cultures
Did you know that the way you greet others can represent the culture of your country?
It is common to think culture shows its differences in many ways throughout the world. When regarding the ways of interacting between people, a special type of difference can be observed. A difference that also points to the "High Context vs. Low Context" by Edward T. Hall. According to a study, societies that are considered to be "high context", mainly have warmer, more intertwined ways of greeting and interacting with each other. On the other side, "low context" cultures are rather stiff regarding interaction between individuals, maintaining a certain distance and keeping touch to a minimum. Those subtle differences can also be observed in Hall's theory, where high context cultures have a closer, more interpersonal relation than the low context ones, therefore having a direct link with the aforementioned study. The study also exemplifies how a high context culture such as the Chinese one might strive to reach certain expectations such as being perceived as extra polite or maximizing praise of others. Modesty, even if praised in both low context and high context, is more visible in high context cultures because in most scenarios, individuals want to exaggerate in order to be considered agreeable to others. To showcase the differences, an example of interactions and greetings between cultures are in order to simplify the visualization: two friends who met online, one Spanish and the other one Dutch. The Spanish girl travels to Holland to see her friend. On the trip she has a delay of 8 hours, which makes her even more eager to reach her destination. When she arrives at the airport, she goes straight to see her friend. The Spanish woman throws herself directly at her friend giving her a big hug and two kisses, behaviour in line with high context culture. The Dutchwoman is half blocked and stiffened trying to take the situation, trying to take a little distance, very common behaviour of low context culture. This is the first impression that both have, and that is why greetings are so representative in each culture. With this example we can see how important is to be conscious of the differences between cultures, because the Spanish girl might think that maybe the Dutch girl did not feel so eager to see her, or the Dutch girl might think that the Spanish girl is too emotional and that she crosses the limits. There are many ways to interact with people, and when mixing cultures, it is important to be aware of those nuances. Have this in mind before meeting internationals, and everything will be all right.
It is common to think culture shows its differences in many ways throughout the world. When regarding the ways of interacting between people, a special type of difference can be observed. A difference that also points to the "High Context vs. Low Context" by Edward T. Hall. According to a study, societies that are considered to be "high context", mainly have warmer, more intertwined ways of greeting and interacting with each other. On the other side, "low context" cultures are rather stiff regarding interaction between individuals, maintaining a certain distance and keeping touch to a minimum. Those subtle differences can also be observed in Hall's theory, where high context cultures have a closer, more interpersonal relation than the low context ones, therefore having a direct link with the aforementioned study. The study also exemplifies how a high context culture such as the Chinese one might strive to reach certain expectations such as being perceived as extra polite or maximizing praise of others. Modesty, even if praised in both low context and high context, is more visible in high context cultures because in most scenarios, individuals want to exaggerate in order to be considered agreeable to others. To showcase the differences, an example of interactions and greetings between cultures are in order to simplify the visualization: two friends who met online, one Spanish and the other one Dutch. The Spanish girl travels to Holland to see her friend. On the trip she has a delay of 8 hours, which makes her even more eager to reach her destination. When she arrives at the airport, she goes straight to see her friend. The Spanish woman throws herself directly at her friend giving her a big hug and two kisses, behaviour in line with high context culture. The Dutchwoman is half blocked and stiffened trying to take the situation, trying to take a little distance, very common behaviour of low context culture. This is the first impression that both have, and that is why greetings are so representative in each culture. With this example we can see how important is to be conscious of the differences between cultures, because the Spanish girl might think that maybe the Dutch girl did not feel so eager to see her, or the Dutch girl might think that the Spanish girl is too emotional and that she crosses the limits. There are many ways to interact with people, and when mixing cultures, it is important to be aware of those nuances. Have this in mind before meeting internationals, and everything will be all right.
Eduard Oancea and Marta Serra
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from https://online.seu.edu/articles/high-and- low-context-cultures/
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