An Interpretation of the Chinese Way of Road Crossing-Based on Hall's High- and Low-context Culture Theory

Abstract: The current social phenomenon of the Chinese way of road crossing has aroused social resonance to a certain degree, making people tend to interpret this kind of group behavior as an uncivilized behavior. However, if it is a social behavior acquired by almost all social members in the same social environment, it cannot be understood only from the perspective of the quality of any individual citizen. Therefore, this social phenomenon should be re-examined from a deeper cultural perspective. Taylor, a scholar specializing in culture, pointed out that every group and every society has a set of explicit or latent behavior patterns. Human behavior is cultural behavior, and in turn, culture has a shaping effect on human behavior. Therefore, based on the theory of high- and low-context culture, this paper tries to interpret the social and cultural mechanism behind this phenomenon and analyze the phenomenon of the Chinese way of road crossing. Keywords: Chinese way of road crossing, high- and low-context culture theory; group-oriented thinking, invisible rules