A Shared Understanding --- Although diplomats may be more cognizant of this than others, coming from a multicultural background I have often found that people often do not (often unintentionally) look to build a shared understanding between those from different cultures, despite implicitly knowing that there exists some difference between the perceptions in said cultures. Especially, when dealing with those with a potentially significantly different perspective, it may be beneficial to promote clarification (instead of assumption) when one encounters a behavior which may be non-standard in their own culture (e.g. with the Japanese colleague and Chinese waitress examples from above).

Source author: Mamta Reid liveandsmile@hotmail.com