poker face - is super cultural thing, I work with several Asians, most of them (not all!) sits _with_ poker face whole day. It is kind of hard to read people and understand if they got it when I'm explaining something. They are not even nod or smile. I'm European and sometimes it is super frustrating to not receive any body lang feedback. But when we close office doors they starts to chat, nod, laugh and what not.
On other hand there are two Japanese who acts like Europeans all the time - nods, talks, etc even though they left Japan ~2-3y ago. I thought initially that they already adapted to this Western style.
I've talked with them all about this and they just said that they just do what they did in their countries.
Fun fact: There is a word in Japanese -- aizuchi -- for "meaningless nothings which you say during a conversation to let the other party know that you're actively engaged in the conversation."
Sitting with a stone face during a meeting in Japan would be very not normative. Your counterparty would assume that either you're totally checked out, repulsed by what is on offer, or so ridiculously above their social standing that you didn't even have to go through the motions of pretending to care about what they had to say.
Your periodic dispatch from Asia Is A Big Place; Consider The Possibility It Is Populated Mostly By Humans.
My experience with Japanese people (I used to work in a Japanese company and attended a lot of meetings in Japanese) listening to someone else in meetings is a lot of "Aaaa, sou sou sou sou. Sou desu. Wakarimashita. Hai. Wakarimashita. Mmmm. Mmm Mmm. Sou desu." I eventually did some of it myself. Seems like a lot of aizuchi to me :P
On other hand there are two Japanese who acts like Europeans all the time - nods, talks, etc even though they left Japan ~2-3y ago. I thought initially that they already adapted to this Western style.
I've talked with them all about this and they just said that they just do what they did in their countries.