A few years ago, I went to Australia Gold Coast for a 3 month study tour. One day, my Australian friend, Japanese classmate and I met in a sushi bar. My Australian said “Er, the sushi tastes bad”, the rice is so hard. You know, in a sushi bar, the chef usually just stands behind the counter. My Japanese classmate looked at the chef immediately and said nervously, “Mm...I think the miso soup is quite nice.” The Australian commented on the food, not the person. But what the Japanese worried about was the relationship with the chef, even though we didn’t know him at all. That time, I was there and thought of what I learned in Linguistics in college, that is high and low context communications.