Most businesspeople engaged in international trade underestimate the importance of social and cultural differences, but these differences can deralil an important transaction. for example, when big boy opened a restaurant in bangkok, it quickly became popular with european and american tourists, but the local thais refused to eat there. instead, they placed gifts of rice and incense at the feet of the big boy statue (a chubby boy holding a hamburger) because it reminded them of buddha. in japan, customers tiptoed around a logo painted on the floor at the entrance to an athlete's foot store because in japan it is considered taboo to step on a crest. and in russia, consumers found the american-style energetic happiness of mcdonald's employees insincere and offensive when the company opened its first stores there. unfortunately, cultural norms are rarely written down, and what is written down may well be inaccurate. cultural differences include differences in spoken and written language. although it is certainly possible to translate words from one language to another, the true meaning is sometimes misinterpreted or lost.