Page 130 - Cultures and Organizations

I, We, and They 109

Visits among Javanese family members needed no previous appointment.
Actually that could easily be done, for although the telephone had not come
into common use yet, one could always send a servant with a letter asking
for an appointment. But it was not done; it never occurred to one that a
visit would not suit the other party. It was always convenient. Unexpected
visitors did not exist. The door was (and still is) always open.
The visitors were welcomed with joyful courtesy and would be asked
to take a seat. The host and hostess hurriedly withdrew to change into
more suitable attire than their workaday clothes. Without asking, a servant
brought in coffee or tea. Cookies were offered, while in the mean time the
host and hostess had joined the party.
There we sat, but nobody spoke. We were not embarrassed by this
silence; nobody felt nervous about it. Every now and then, thoughts and
news were exchanged. But this was not really necessary. We enjoyed being
together, seeing each other again. After the first exchange of news, any other

communication was utterly redundant. If one did not have anything to say,
there was no need to recite platitudes. After an hour or so, the guests would
ask permission to leave. With mutual feelings of satisfaction, we parted. In
smaller towns on the island of Java life is still like this. 25

Eurobarometer survey data for nineteen wealthier European countries
show striking differences in the extent to which people claim to “visit a res-
taurant or bar daily”: in the more collectivist cultures, this form of social-
26
ization is much more normal. In individualist cultures, people prefer to
meet at home, if at all: “My home is my castle” is a saying from individual-
ist Britain.
U.S. anthropologist and popular author Edward T. Hall (1914–2009)
distinguished cultures on the basis of their way of communicating along a
27

dimension from high-context to low-context. A high-context communica-
tion is one in which little has to be said or written because most of the infor-
mation is either in the physical environment or supposed to be known by the
persons involved, while very little is in the coded, explicit part of the mes-
sage. This type of communication is frequent in collectivist cultures; Had-
jiwibowo’s family visit is a prime example. A low-context communication is
one in which the mass of information is vested in the explicit code, which is
typical for individualist cultures. Lots of things that in collectivist cultures
are self-evident must be said explicitly in individualist cultures. American
business contracts are much longer than Japanese business contracts.