Sometimes, the biggest communication breakdowns don’t come from obvious differences — they come from what we think we have in common.
A while back, I was helping a client in Singapore prep their brand messaging for a China market push. They had done their homework — they’d worked with Chinese clients before, their staff included native Mandarin speakers, and their design team had studied visual trends across Greater China. All signs pointed to strong alignment.
But then came the feedback from Shanghai.
“What’s with all the corporate smiling?” one respondent said. “It feels fake.”
Another: “You’re telling us you’re ‘committed to excellence,’ but that just sounds like empty noise here.”
The Singapore team was stunned. “We use the same words in Mandarin,” they said. “Why aren’t they landing?”
That’s when the real conversation began — about tone, about implied trust signals, about unspoken expectations tied to authority and humility in the Chinese context. The language was shared. But the assumptions behind the language were not.
I’ve seen this pattern repeat across Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, where business relationships can carry more ease and flexibility, teams sometimes bristle at the formality expected in northern Chinese business settings. In Singapore, where communication is often direct and concise, that same tone can come across as abrupt or arrogant in other regional contexts. And yet, the linguistic and geographic proximity tempts everyone into thinking: “We get each other.”
But cultural proximity can be a trap. It makes you lower your guard. It makes you skip the check-ins. It makes you assume the room is aligned — until you realize no one’s even reading from the same page.
So what can you do?
Here are three quick checks to help realign across “close-but-different” contexts:
Ask about subtext, not just text.
Don’t stop at “Do you understand?” Ask “How does this come across to you?”Check where the trust lives.
Is it built through credentials, shared values, third-party endorsements, or time spent?Notice tone shifts.
The same message, said warmly in one market, may need a more deferential tone in another.
The bottom line? Shared language doesn’t guarantee shared meaning. And sometimes, the more familiar things seem, the more dangerous the gap can become.
©2025 Shelly Bryant
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