So I'm from Germany but I live in Korea. And especially in the beginning when I arrived here as a agile coach for a big automotive supplier company where I was supposed to teach them the new processes and so on it was terrifying.
I would do a presentation of something and then my expectation was that we would talk about parts of it and there would be follow up questions about details, etc. but more often than not there was just silence. And that would eat me up inside to a degree where some times I would complain about it and just cut the meetings short.
Over time I realized that they are comfortable sitting and thinking about what I showed them.
But it's still difficult for me :D
Wasn't aware that tolerance to silence can actually be a cultural thing, that's pretty fascinating.
In some countries, being silent is actually an interrogation technique since people tend to be uncomfortable with it and instinctually try to make some noise, be it through universal language or just talking which can make you reveal information you otherwise wouldn't have shared.