One thing I learned from the Australians the other night that I forgot to mention is that when they receive training regarding cultural sensitivity they learn about high context and low context cultures. Americans and Canadians (but only the English speaking part, not French), and Australia are considered "low context" and most Asian countries (including Bangladesh), France and Russia are "high context." In this sense context refers to everything but the words that are actually being spoken.
This means that you don't need a lot of situational clues to figure out what 2 Americans are talking about, whereas eavesdropping on 2 Bangladeshis (even if I spoke the language) would leave you clueless because so much is unsaid (such as words with unspoken shared meanings, body language, facial expressions etc.) A good explanation here and a longer one here.
One more thing to be aware of I guess.
Unspoken shared meanings? Have you experienced that yet, Sarah...? Hmmmmmm?
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