A two-part presentation on cross-cultural communication consists of a discussion of cultural differences in interpersonal communication and an article from a Greek English-language publication concerning telephone use skills in a foreign country. Cultural differences in communication are divided into eight types and illustrated: (1) when to talk; (2) what to say; (3) pacing and pausing; (4) the art of listening; (5) intonation; (6) what is conventional and what is not in a language; (7) degree of indirectness; and (8) cohesion and coherence. Examples of these observations about communications skills, found in one person's experience with answering telephones in Greece, are discussed. It is concluded that cross-cultural communication presents a double-bind: the need to be connected to others and the need not to be imposed upon and that, in certain cultural situations, individuals must compromise these needs in order to communicate. An analogy is made between cross-cultural communication and a route on which someone has turned the signs around: the familiar signposts are there, but they don't lead in the right direction. (MSE)