Hello , That could be very evident in jokes being told in different cultures. You could hear a joke in a certain country with a different culture and merely understand it, because it reflects their cultural background,their life styles ,their history etc ...so that would be rather non comprehensible for the receiver from another culture. The moment he or she explains to you the meaning behind the joke you will grasp it and learn something new about that culture. It takes lot of open mindedness to be able to understand different aspects of other cultures because they usually derive from circumstances and backgrounds one hasn't really experienced and a language one doesn't know well enough . One response to cultural misunderstanding would be hostility ,an easier way to avoid the discrepancy that such misunderstanding creates as a German saying goes " Es ist leicht zu verachten , schwieriger zu verstehen " " It is easier to scorn , difficult to understand "!

Cultural misunderstandings generally refer to incidents in which differences between one's own culture and another culture leads to some kind of mistake. I don't know too much about the specifics of Chinese culture, so I will use an example from Japanese culture. In Japan, people often speak while someone is talking. They say simple things that in English would be like "Yes." "Okay." "I understand." etc. This lets the speaker know that the listener is following. However, in English, this is often the opposite. If someone keeps saying "Okay." or "Yes." while you're speaking it's a sign that they aren't really listening or that they aren't very interested in what you're saying. So if a westerner travels to Japan, Japanese may often repeat themselves because the western isn't saying "okay" and such to let them know they are following. They expect to hear that, but because of the differences in culture if the westerner isn't familiar with this specific part of the Japanese language it can lead to misunderstandings. This is a fairly simple misunderstanding, but there are others that can have greater consequences of course. The best way to avoid misunderstandings is to learn about and be respectful of another countries culture while you're there.

When I am making an appointment with a Chinese, I do not like the answer such as "oh...maybe, I will consider...probably"..etc. That is quite confusing to me and upset me at times. In western countries, yes or no is by far the easiest way to show your answer.

This is an assumption. I'm in China and one friend invited me to visit her house. If I bring some pears as a gift into her house, she and her family would get embarrassed and I'd wonder what's wrong. It's the cultural misunderstanding. I know pears has the meaning 'goodbyes' in China, but not in Korea. If you're in Korea, you would be surprised at the fact that Korean people split pears when they eat it. Korean pears are really big, you can never eat one pear all yourself. :P

I would say ignorance is a large part/cause of cultural misunderstanding. Non-verbal communication also is. I notice people in some cultures keep distance from you when talking while others get right into your face. It's really interesting. I would read a book called Do's and Taboos around the World http://www.amazon.com/Taboos-Around-World-Roger-Axtell/dp/0471595284/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231102134&sr=8-1and the sequel called Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language around the World http://www.amazon.com/Gestures-Taboos-Language-Around-World/dp/0471183423/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231102235&sr=8-2by Roger E. Axtell. The books are very entertaining and informative.