Applying Theory into Practice!

Being on exchange has allowed me to experience several intercultural miscommunication encounters. The latest happened today when I met my french friend that told me he was just kicked out of his group for one of his subjects. They had a group project to hand in last week and basically he was away all last week, which he advised the group of. He went on to say it was unfair because they didn't warn him. Next he made an interesting comment that the person that kicked him out was Chinese and that he had heard that Chinese tend to have funny reactions like this sometimes. This triggered something in my mind about High context and Low context cultures. China is a High context culture, which means that they are not very direct in their communication compared to a low context culture like France. Thus my friend was a victim of intercultural miscommunication. He was upset that they didn't warn him beforehand and vice versa the Chinese person was probably upset that the french did not pick up the hints and forced them to be confrontational.