Matyáš O.
How to regain Slavic identity
I love her pieces of advice on how to navigate high-context and indirect communication with Indians, Arabic people, but also Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese but also Italians as it definitely helped me understand different cultures as Slavic person coming from Czech Republic which is a low-context culture. As a Czech student studying in Prague, I faced cultural clashes with people online across different cultures as mentioned, but also in real life. With Croatians, it's completely the same and similar as Czechs because I am used to communicate clearly, logically and directly. I was called 'too much', 'too blunt', 'too direct' by people from indirect cultures. Shrinking myself and losing my identity did not help at all, it was deppresion and a lot of anxiety as well. One Indian person told me "I don't care about your culture" which is a completely red flag and his way of communication is not the only way. At some point when interacting with people from different cultures than mine, I told myself: '"I've had enough and I'll use my Slavic directness" which completely made them in shock and they did not know how to respond and I was also mean to them at some point because I did not want to lose my identity ever again and some people from high-context cultures such as Indians, Arabs rather left me because they did not know how to deal with Slavic bluntness and directness and they were not willing to understand Slavic culture.
Response from Tamara PeklicOct 19, 2026
Matyáš, thank you for this review. I am glad my advice helped you hold your Slavic directness instead of losing yourself. That is exactly what the work is for. Keep building. Tamara