I have not noticed many differences between the Czech Republic and the United States when it comes to low and high-context communication. Supposedly in America, people rely a lot on verbal communication. In other countries like the Czech Republic, people tend to rely more on non verbal communication and body language. This hasn’t really been my case at work. Whenever I have an assignment, the instructions are very clearly given vocally. This also applies in everyday conversation. When we talk at lunch together, most of the communication is verbal, not nonverbal.
I mentioned this prompt with my coworkers at work today and we tried to brainstorm answers to this question. They commented on how it is interesting that in the United States, the question “how are you?” is often rhetorical. We had a whole discussion on which one is better, responding with something like “I am good” like we do in the US, or actually answering the question like how they do in the Czech Republic. We all had differing opinions so it was interesting talking about this.
The only issue I have had with a difference between low and high context communication was when I would interact with food service employees. At some restaurants, patrons seat themselves, and sometimes you have to go up to the front to pay instead of getting the bill dropped at the table. These differences were hard to navigate at first, and it was especially hard when employees would only nod to a table or make a gesture without speaking. However, I have gotten used to the differences in dining here. I believe this issue was more about me not being familiar with the dining culture here, not totally a communication difference.
Thankfully, I haven’t had any huge miscommunications at work. Sometimes I miss a few words in a conversation because of the language barrier and I bet the same happens to my coworkers. Typically the conversation just continues on because we can assume the gist even if we miss a word. If I ever don’t understand something, I just ask them to repeat it and they are always more than willing to do so.
It is crazy to think that next week I will be done with this program. I feel like I just got here. Recently I have been getting very sentimental about all of my favorite places here. I keep visiting them after work because I know I will miss them once I am gone. I am sad that I likely won’t be able to visit every place I originally wanted to, but I have to remind myself that I can always come back. When thinking about this trip, I always thought that I would spend a lot of time at tourist destinations. However, I only did that during the first week. I know that the places I miss the most won’t be Dancing House or Prague Castle. I am going to miss Osada, the coffee shop I go to every day before work; Folimanka, my favorite sunset spot; and Divoká Šárka, the lake I spent hours in this summer because this country doesn’t have air conditioning.
On top of that, I know I will miss the easy access to other European countries. This past weekend, me and a few friends from the program visited Rome! This was such a cool trip. It was interesting seeing 2000+ year old buildings next to new ones. When I thought about the Colosseum and the Pantheon, I had imagined that they would be secluded on a hill- not in the middle of the street. It was cool seeing how life just continues on regardless of what and who lived there beforehand. The whole trip made me realize how insignificant our time period really is.
Something that really made me think about this was a tour we did. On Saturday we visited the catacombs and had an awesome tour guide. He explained the history and conditions for early Catholics really well. What made me existential though was the fact that he was chunking time periods into 200-300 years. One sentence would sum up hundreds of years. I couldn’t stop thinking about how America has only been around for that long. I’ve obviously always known that America is just a blip in human history and an even smaller blip in Earth’s history, but seeing such old buildings and hearing such ancient stories helped me conceptualize it more. Overall, it was a really cool trip that made me think a lot about the world.
