culture difference

Cross-cultural understanding has always been a problem since that international and interracial communication is so frequent these days ,in which equality and respect to each side are stressed and absolutely necessary.
However,the differences lay in almost every aspects of life,including the way people have meals together. Why cultures are so different?
Let us put this question aside for a while. It is said that the modern practice of shaking hands upon meeting originates from the ancient practice to show others that you do not have a weapon in your hand by showing your palm to other people. It is likely that every practice and piece of custom today comes out from an ancient one. So it is no wonder that after thousands of years of separate development in each others’ own way, eastern and western customs and practices differ quite a lot from each other now.,which evidently reflects the gap between different cultures.
In addition, the difference between the core spirit of each culture leads to different behaviour tendency ,such as when chinese is prasied by others,they tend to deny it since it is their way to show their modesty,which can hardly be understood by westerners. The core spirit of western culture stress on the individualism while the eastern one cares more about the community. This can explain why westerners are more glad to show their own opinions and demand their own rights.Nonetheless, as long as we adopt a liberal posture ,it is not impossible to communicate well and satisfy both sides, since that to have a better world is human’s common aim.