【正文】 however, when encountered with his grandfather‘s dissenting opinions, he dared not to take a stand against him. This may manifest the rigid hierarchical structure in the Japanese society. In the Japanese society, how hierarchy is formed depends mainly on seniority, social roles, and gender. As a respectable senior member of the family and the former leader of the pany, the grandfather obviously overpowered the inexperienced young chairman. In other words, the grandfather seemed to be an absolute authority for the young chairman. In Japanese culture, challenging or disagreeing with elders‘ opinions would be deemed as being disrespectful and is often condemned. People in lower positions are expected to be loyal and obedient to authority. That‘s why the young chairman didn‘t say anything but just nodded and agreed with his grandfather. But Phil seemed to know little about the Japanese culture in this aspect. In many Western cultures, particularly American culture, seniority seldom matters very much in such situations, and young people are usually encouraged to challenge authority and voice their own opinions. Unfortunately, his outspoken protest could easily offend the grandfather and he might be regarded as a rude and illbred person by other Japanese.Case 10In Japan, a pany is often very much like a big family, in which the manger(s) will take good care of the employees and the employees are expected to devote themselves to the development of the pany and, if it is necessary, to sacrifice their own individual interests for the interests of the pany, from which, in the long run, the employees will benefit greatly. But for the French, a pany is just a loosely knit social organization wherein individuals are supposed to take care of themselves and their families. Moreover, the way the French make decisions in the family might also be different from the typical Japanese one, which may not often involve females and the power to decide usually lies with the dominating male. As there are such cultural differences between the Japanese and the French, Mr. Legrand‘s decision made Mr. Tanaka feel dumbfounded.Case 11Incidents such as these can point to possible cultural differences in socalled ―polite behavior, and at the same time highlight the tendency for people to react emotionally to unexpected behavior. People in most cultures would probably agree that an apology is needed when an offence or violation of social norms has taken place. However, there may be differing opinions as to when we should apologize (what situations call for an apology) and how we should apologize. To many Westerners, Japanese apologize more frequently and an apology in Japanese does not necessarily mean that the person is acknowledging a fault. To many Japanese, Westerners may seem to be rude just because they do not apologize as often as the Japanese would do. In this case, for instance, the attitude of the Australian student‘s parents is shocking to the Japanese but will be acceptable in an Englishspeaking society, for the student is already an adult and can be responsible for her own deeds.Case 12In this case, it seems that the Chinese expectations were not fulfilled. First, having two people sharing host responsibilities could be somewhat confusing to the hierarchically minded Chinese. Second, because age is often viewed as an indication of seniority, the Chinese might have considered the youth of their Canadian hosts as slight to their own status. Third, in China, it is traditional for the host to offer a wele toast at the beginning of the meal, which is the reciprocated by the guests。Case 1 this case, there seemed to be problems in municating with people of different cultures in spite of the efforts made to achieve understanding. We should know that in Egypt as in many cultures, the human relationship is valued so highly that it is not expressed in an objective and impersonal way. While Americans certainly value human relationships, they are more likely to speak of them in less personal, more objective terms. In this case, Richard‘s mistake might be that he chose to praise the food itself rather than the total evening, for which the food was simply the setting or excuse. For his host and hostess it was as if he had attended an art exhibit and plimented the artist by saying, ―What beautiful frames your pictures are in.2. In Japan the situation may be more plicated. Japanese people value order and harmony among persons in a group, and that the organization itself－be it a family or a vast corporation－is more valued than the characteristics of any particular member. In contrast, Americans stress individuality as a value and are apt to assert individual differences when they seem justifiably in conflict with the goals or values of the group. In this case: Richard‘s mistake was in making great efforts to defend himself. Let the others assume that the errors were not intentional, but it is not right to defend yourself, even when your unstated intent is to assist the group by warning others of similar mistakes. A simple apology and acceptance of the blame would have been appropriate. But for poor Richard to have merely apologized would have seemed to him to be subservient, unmanly.3. When it es to England, we expect fewer problems between Americans and Englishmen than between Americans and almost any other group. In this case we might look beyond the gesture of taking sugar or cream to the values expressed in this gesture: for Americans, ―Help yourself。女性覺(jué)得不用直接問(wèn)就知道她想要什么是很重要的。糟糕的是，女人最想要的卻是男人可以憑直覺(jué)就知道她想要的是什么。為了讓女人高興，男人要送她一件她真正想要的禮物。因此，在交際過(guò)程中，就很難依靠共享的知識(shí)和背景來(lái)有把握地詮釋他人表達(dá)的意義。人們每天要與來(lái)自世界各地不同文化背景、不同群體的人交往，成功交際的關(guān)鍵在于盡可能地共享對(duì)話語(yǔ)意義的推定?！裼捎谠谛詣e、年齡、種族或文化群體、教育、國(guó)家或城市的地域、收入或職業(yè)群體、個(gè)人經(jīng)歷等各方面的差異，人們分屬不同的語(yǔ)言群體，這些差異使我們很難完全領(lǐng)會(huì)另一個(gè)群體成員所表達(dá)的意思。文化為我們提供超越個(gè)體經(jīng)驗(yàn)可能的理想典范，幫助我們決定應(yīng)該優(yōu)先考慮的人或事。如果文化是一種心智程序，那么它也是現(xiàn)實(shí)的心靈地圖。文化是特定群體的共有財(cái)產(chǎn)，而不單是個(gè)體的特征。文化就好像是魚(yú)暢游于其中的水一般，人們想當(dāng)然地把文化看成是客觀存在的事實(shí)，因而很少去研究它。文化就是我們心靈的視窗，透過(guò)它我們審視生活的方方面面。文化就像電腦使用的 DOS 或者Unix 或者 “視窗”（Windows）等