A Cultural misunderstanding often occurs to people who travel abroad. Especially for people who need to communicate with native people. It occurs when something like gestures, a word, object, almost anything you can think have different meanings in two or more cultures. But the question is why the meaning of the same thing is different between two cultures?
Let’s explain it by an example. Jokes rely on a creative use of language and sometimes can create misunderstanding. Because it reflects their cultural background, their life styles, their history etc ...so that they would create misunderstanding for the receiver from another culture.
But some misunderstandings are not as simple as jokes that you just do not understand them. Some misunderstandings refer to different attitudes and have greater consequences. For example some behaviors in different cultures mean rudeness. People in some cultures stand very close to each other to speak to one another and consider it rudeness to stand away and in other cultures standing a few feet away is a norm unless it's a romantic involvement.
Learning language and studying tourism guide can help to solve misunderstanding. But there is a common guide for avoiding the behavior that might be misunderstood, English people have a proverb, They say “when in Rome do as the Romans do” that means when traveling, follow the customs of local people.