Various dynamics happen in a one-to-one intercultural meeting. Some are discussed elsewhere as roles and effects of culture shock.

The appropriate response is to respect that the other person with his or her own unique personality, and to establish an appropriate relationship. This normally involves acceptance, trust, mutual understanding and friendship, but these vary greatly with the kind of relationship (you treat bank managers, waiters, neighbors, and relations differently from each other), and according to local etiquette. (Remember many cultures value politeness over friendliness, and honesty means different things in different places.) 

Once the idea was that communication was simply this:

Speaker --> Message  --> Listener

This was then made a little more sophisticated, because the speaker actually interprets what he saying when he puts it into symbolic form. That is, he/she encodes it. The listener also interprets the message, which is the decoding process.

Speaker -> Encode -->Message -->Decode --> Listener

It was realized that various factors affect the listener's understanding of the message. In those times, those factors seemed random and unpredictable, so they were labelled "noise":

Speaker -> Encode -->Message -->Decode --> Listener
^
|
Noise

The present trend has been to make sense of noise, by explaining the factors coming into play. 

Assumptions

You receive a gold-embossed invitation from the Japanese Ambassador to meet the Japanese Prime Minister in a luxurious city hotel. It says that he believes you have particular expertise and he would like your advice. You think this is odd, and wonder if you might get a high-paid job in Japan as a result. The invitation lists a certain day and time and asks that you get a quarter hour briefing with the translator on Japanese etiquette beforehand.

All goes as planned. You arrive at the hotel, attend the briefing, and meet the Japanese Prime Minister. He carefully asks some thoughtful questions, to which you reply. He listens carefully and asks more questions. At the allotted time, the appointment ends and you leave the hotel. On the way out you meet an old friend who asks what you do and tries you out with a few questions. Time is no problem of either of you, so you talk over coffee at a fast-food joint.

As it happens, both the Prime Minister and your friend asked exactly the same questions. However, they received very different answers. You also dressed up for the Prime Minister, but wouldn't do so for an old friend. You adapted your approach based on context:

• How the meeting came about (e.g. carefully planned vs. spontaneous.)
• Who introduced you (Ambassador's letter vs. old friends)
• The appearance and trapping of surroundings (e.g. luxury hotel vs. fast-food joint)
• Preliminary observations of attitude
• Expectations of meeting (catch up with friend vs. links with Japanese government)

This means that the simple questions themselves and your expertise did not totally determine the answers.

Other Aspects

Other dynamics can also affect a meeting between two people of different cultures:

• Your racial or ethnic appearance distracts me from communication. I am uncomfortable with your appearance (skin color, shape of face, height, smell, clothes or grooming)
• I am uncomfortable because I am self-conscious of my appearance (skin color, shape of face, height, smell, clothes, or grooming)
• You should follow my rules because they're the only rules I know, or I think they're universal, or I feel nervous, threatened or vulnerable. 
• I communicate with you according to my idea of your ethnic group and try to fit into aspects of your culture (role, power, status, and proxemics).
• I am confused: are you treating me as part of your culture or as a foreigner? In the case of two people from different cultures, each can be trying to act as part of the others' culture. (E.g. the English-speaker speaks Indonesian and the Indonesian speaks English.) It can be then that each gets the others' culture wrong.
• I have a stereotype of your culture.
• I am a pseudo-anthropologist. "I've read the theory of your culture and assume it represents you as an individual." That is, I create an academically informed stereotype.
• I expect to be treated with racial or ethnic prejudice, for example, inferior, superior, unknowing, knowing, etc. I might not appear defensive, but might adjust my communication to expected prejudices. I might privately enjoy or resent it.

When both sides realize which set of rules applies and naturally know what to do and feel what is right, then these dynamics have little role. It is a natural relationship between two people who understand each other.

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