Cultural Knowledge Western-style and Japanese-style Conversations Western people often find it difficult to make successful conversations with Japanese people. Differences in culture are at least in part responsible for this problem. To make the point clear, the author of the text compares these two kinds of conversations to certain types of ballgames. In the authors eyes, a western-style conversation between two people is like a game of tennis while the Japanese-style conversation is like bowlingCultural Knowledge • Western-style and Japanese-style Conversations • Western people often find it difficult to make successful conversations with Japanese people. Differences in culture are at least in part responsible for this problem. To make the point clear, the author of the text compares these two kinds of conversations to certain types of ballgames. In the author’s eyes, a western-style conversation between two people is like a game of tennis while the Japanese-style conversation is like bowling