Cultural Difference or Difference of Opinion?

After a few 70 hour work weeks, it can be such an effort to be civil. Seems some days I have to use every ounce of strength to keep from biting off someone's head or spouting obscenities (although that might be a little out of character)... or (as can be equally heinous in some countries) raising my voice or showing displeasure. And it is easier for that "displeasure" to escalate when the person who's ear I am deafening is SMILING back! Seemingly NO acknowledgment of the problem at hand! It's true, in Japan I remember experiencing extreme frustration over the fact that every time there was a problem (like Yasuda-Sensei doing nothing to help prepare, teach, or discipline students in class other than SNORE loudly from his chair in the back of the room), nobody except for me seemed to be upset. Well, actually, I guess everyone WAS in fact, upset, but it is a usual reaction to smile when something makes you uncomfortable. (However, for me in Yokohama, it seemed that any bad feelings would eventually pass because my magnanimous supervisors there generally understood that it was difficult for a "gaijin" like me to really understand Japanese culture or practice the same discipline or self-control.)

Here in Taiwan, I have no excuse! I yearn to attribute any problems I encounter in life here to cultural misunderstandings, but this is a little unsafe. If I ever dared to suggest that something was just a misunderstanding based on cultural differences, it might be misconstrued. My meaning, " I must have missed some little thing that I should have done to make this go more smoothly... like better observing office heirarchy and being more appropriately respectful." Someone else hears, "Well, in NORTH AMERICA, things aren't done like this! What kind of backwards, half-assed, hill-billy methods are you employing anyway? Can't we be CIVILIZED?" (As if someone originally from Rural Route No. 1 in New Brunswick could ever accuse someone from Taipei, Taiwan of being a "hill-billy!" LOL. Anyway, I know I really don't have enough experience in an office to know how things would be done in my own country anyway... So I guess I should just try to face facts! I am just possessed of many differences of opinion.