April 09, 2005
High-Contxet Culture
I was thinking today that why some of my friends who are blogging in Iran did not like it when I emailed them and asked them to exchange links for our websites. They wrote : "I hate the word Exchange when it come to this point, I read your blog and you read mine and I will give you a link if I like it, you can do the same thing as you wish". The point is if I had asked them to give me a link they would have done it with no hesitations and they would be sure that I will add them on my page too. This is high context culture which I am losing the base of it unintentionally. We -Iranians- are homogeneous people, when we say one word, we understand ten, but here in North America people have to say ten words to understand one. Interesting, isn't it?
In regards to this high context culture issues, president Khatami who attended the Pope funeral ceremony was reported to shake hand with Iranian president of Israel Moshe Katzav and then he denied it strongly at Tehran's airport. Right after that some people suggested that Iranian policy toward Israel has changed and some even recommended that Iranians should marry Israelis in order to make this Iran-Israel bond strong. Funny, huh? They probably shook hands and that was it and this was done just because they were sitting on the same row due. One action for us is enough to write books and hundred journals and articles. President Khatami denied it and we know what he meant by this denial, he does not have to explain more.
Posted by jesmi at April 9, 2005 07:02 PM