How to read unspoken cues in Japan and Korea

The meeting is over, but there is still no agreement

The team is discussing an implementation deadline. One person says the plan will be difficult, and then silence falls. The facilitator moves on to the next item and records the deadline as agreed. A few days later, it becomes clear that some participants regarded the earlier comment as a serious objection. This example is not about any one nationality. It illustrates a broader problem: people differ in how much information they state explicitly and how much they expect listeners to infer from the circumstances of a conversation. In Japan, the expression kuuki-wo-yomu is often translated as “reading the room.” Korean nunchi also involves noticing social cues and responding appropriately, but it has its own meanings and tradition of use. The two concepts should not be collapsed into a single exotic skill. Still less useful is the assumption that every Japanese or Korean person communicates indirectly, while everyone from another country requires literal messages. International cooperation brings multiple differences into play. Social norms matter, but so do industry, company culture, international experience and the relationship between participants. Two people from the same country may expect entirely different levels of directness. Someone accustomed to working in an international team may deliberately choose a more explicit way of reaching decisions. Knowledge of cultural context therefore works best as a source of questions, not ready-made answers about an individual. It helps us recognize that our own way of reading a situation is not the only possible one. It does not, however, remove the need to get to know the person in front of us and check the rules adopted by the team in which both sides will work together.

Situational awareness is more than reading facial expressions

Jung, Kim and Tanikawa propose a conceptualisation of kuuki-wo-yomu in the Japanese organizational context. Heo and Park, meanwhile, describe the development and validation of a nunchi scale. These are different kinds of work: one clarifies a concept, while the other examines a measurement tool. Neither is a manual for reading a foreign partner's intentions without error.Jung et al., 2023;Heo and Park, 2013. In a real conversation, context includes the relationship between participants, hierarchy, the history of the issue, the moment at which something is said and who else is listening. “We'll think about it” may signal a genuine need for analysis, cautious disagreement or a lack of authority to decide. The wording alone does not settle the meaning. An attentive listener treats cues as a reason to clarify, not as proof that they have already uncovered a hidden meaning. That approach is equally useful when speaking with a colleague from the same city.

Silence can have more than one explanation

When someone does not speak, they may disagree with the proposal, need time to formulate their thoughts or believe that the decision belongs to someone else. They may also be dealing with a connection delay or working in a language in which they speak more slowly. Assigning a single cultural meaning to silence prevents these possibilities from being checked. Treating an absence of protest as unequivocal consent is especially risky when the consequences of a decision are serious. A task-focused question can help: “What conditions need to be met for this deadline to be realistic?” It allows someone to identify an obstacle without having to begin with a public “no.” You can also invite a short written response after the meeting. This is not about working around a supposed national trait. It is about creating several ways to convey information when one conversational format does not provide enough clarity. Be careful, too, with questions that imply agreement. “Everything is clear, right?” makes it harder to raise doubts in many contexts, regardless of country. It may be more useful to ask people to identify an open issue or describe the next step in their own words. The aim is not to test someone as if in an exam, but to confirm understanding on both sides. The facilitator should also summarize what they have heard and invite corrections. If the topic is sensitive, it can be announced in advance and a suitable response format agreed. This predictability helps both people who prefer time to reflect and those who want to speak directly. A shared standard should make it easier to convey substance, not force everyone into the same conversational style.

Communication adjustments should work both ways

Cross-cultural cooperation should not require one side to keep guessing while the other never explains its expectations. A team can agree what counts as accepting a decision, how risks are signalled and when an answer remains provisional. Such agreements do not make a conversation tactless. They allow different speaking styles while ensuring that the deadline, responsibility and scope of commitment have been understood in a similar way. Ask the individual about their preference: “Would you rather discuss concerns during the meeting or receive a draft to read first?” That answer is more useful than a guide that assigns behavior to an entire country. It may also vary with the topic and relationship. Someone may readily criticise a technical solution yet prefer a separate conversation about tension with a manager. A preference is not a permanent operating manual for a person.

How to revisit an unclear agreement

The facilitator in the opening example could write: “I recorded the deadline as agreed, but I want to check that I understood the concerns correctly. What still needs to be decided?” This takes responsibility for checking shared understanding instead of accusing someone of being indirect. The next step is to record the conditions and outstanding issues. If the same ambiguity keeps returning, the decision-making process needs to change; ever more elaborate guesses about tone of voice will not help. Attentiveness also has limits. A new person should not be expected to recognize every unwritten rule, or be penalised for not knowing them. The more varied people's experience, the more important it becomes to explain the context. Learning about concepts such as nunchi can encourage curiosity and interpretive caution. It loses its value when it becomes a label that stops us asking a person about their actual intentions. After a misunderstanding, discuss the process of interpretation itself. What did one side intend to convey, what did the other consider settled, and where did the discrepancy arise? This lets people learn from a specific situation without inventing a story about the character of an entire nation. The team can agree a simple signal that a decision remains open, or a way to record conditional consent. Both sides must have a say in the solution. If only one is expected to keep adapting to the other's unwritten expectations, it is hard to speak of shared responsibility for understanding. Attentiveness to context and clarity of agreement can reinforce one another. Tact does not require important commitments to remain a matter of guesswork or real constraints to be concealed.

Reading a social situation helps us notice what words alone do not convey. It does not replace checking meanings. Cooperation benefits from a combination of attentiveness, tact and explicit agreements that leave room for individual differences.

Using Empatyzer to prepare for a cross-cultural conversation

Empatyzer can help you prepare to engage with a particular person, drawing on the available profile and description of the situation. Comparison offers a starting point for exploring individual differences in ways of working without automatically attributing them to nationality. In Talk to Em about a specific person, you can refine questions about concerns, conditions for agreement and the preferred response format. A short summary that clearly separates settled points from matters still awaiting a decision can also be useful. Empatyzer cannot read another person's silence, gestures or hidden intentions. Nor should the Organizational Culture feature be used as a substitute for knowledge about national cultures, because it concerns the working environment. The tool supports communication planning; the actual meaning of a cue must be checked in conversation. Em can help create questions that combine tact with precision and allow both sides to correct mistaken assumptions.