There was a Japanese client where I use to work that was in a meeting with my coworker. When my coworker would go into detail about how our products work, the Japanese client would nod their head up and down while saying Okay in English. My coworker would take pauses during his mini-lecture, asking "Do you understand what it's doing so far?" He would almost always respond with "No."

It was pretty funny watching from the sidelines as my coworker slowly slipped into insanity because of the miscommunication.

Random Edit Note:

Had a class that dealt with Supply Chains in college. We had a section devoted to negotiations, including international. As a result we had to learn about various business cultures.

One of the main points of that section was Western Cultures tend to have their words require little context (Their words are literal) and have focused more on Individualism. Eastern and Latin Cultures tend to have more of a Collectivism and their words rely heavily on the context of the situation (Their words are implicit).