As a matter of fact, Hall did a lot of his work in America, and a lot of the development of his low/high context communication theory was done in America with Americans. It wasn’t a theory designed only to explain Japan, despite the way people tend to use it nowadays. It’s not just a theory about them over there, it’s a theory about us, here and now.

It’s also worth noting that Hall invented proxemics, from which we have the term “personal space.” Hall was one of the people who discovered and described personal space. So many people don’t realize how important anthropology is to our daily lives, here and now.

One part of high context is that the context for a statement is very broad. For me, low context, I expect her to talk about things that are relevant to the moment. She, on the other hand, will talk about things that are relevant to the whole week – or month – or our entire lives. Things that I have long since put out of my mind, she will bring up suddenly, without warning.

That is to say, low context is: “Hey, honey, do you remember that thing you bought last week? Where is it?” I expect her to announce the topic, state clearly what it is, make sure I understand, and THEN ask the question.
For my wife, high context, it’s just, “Where’s the thing?” She doesn’t announce, clarify or state what her topic is – she just goes directly to the question. And I’m left wondering, “What on earth is she even talking about?”

That’s definitely part of (Japanese) high context culture – having an entire conversation without once actually saying WHAT the conversation is about in the first place!
It can be very, very difficult.

Best example of high context conversation is between me and my mother. They usually go something like this,

“Is that?”
“Yeah”.
The End.

We then spend 20 minutes explaining to my father what those three words were all about.