Case analysis:
As a young and new teacher, Li Hong showed her respect to Maggy with a formal greeting. When Maggy complimented Li on her sweater and herself, Li reacted in a typical Chinese way by overusing modesty in front of a teacher older than her. She displayed her humbleness by saying that her sweater was an old one and she should learn from Maggy, an old
teacher. Li’s responses are perfect between Chinese people but terrible in cross-cultural situations like this. She did not realize that her expression of respect could be translated into offence since individualistic cultures do not associate as much deference with age as collectivistic cultures do. Therefore, Maggy, coming from an individualistic culture, was surprised when Li called her “old teacher”. Maggy did not understand that the word “old” here meant as a compliment, meaning that she had richer teaching experience. Both Li Hong and Maggy communicated only from their cultural perspectives and thus caused miscommunication.