Years back I phoned a retired tech who was one of the last few people left who knew how a piece of machinery worked. He had a deep booming voice (A somewhat hig

Years back I phoned a retired tech who was one of the last few people left who knew how a piece of machinery worked. He had a deep booming voice (A somewhat higher pitched Sam Elliott) and throughout the conversation continually boomed "yeah" in reply to almost everything I said. This mans name was not Japanese but that conversation stuck in my head. I will say this, he was a good listener and immediatly knew the answer to most of my questions. Half of this conversation was on speaker phone and was overheard by a few coworkers who got a kick out the stream of yeah's booming in reply. For the next few weeks my coworkers and I would repeat this during conversations where we would comically interject a deep "yeah" in an attempt to frustrate the person speaking. So I can see how it can be annoying to someone not familiar with the practice and the lack thereof frustrating to someone expecting attention.