Check out this post: Yellow moon, blue traffic light, from Linguarum’s Weblog, on the different ways Japanese and Westerners express things, and how culture affects even the way we perceive the world around us.
Basically the writer’s idea is that Asians, particularly Japanese, view or express things in more symbolic, less literal ways than Westerners. The question this leaves us with is How can we communicate more effectively cross-culturally?