At our startup one of the main customers is a big Japanese company. They sent over a group of engineers for about a month once and the majority of the day they

At our startup one of the main customers is a big Japanese company. They sent over a group of engineers for about a month once and the majority of the day they would just sit around the conference table, seemingly staring at their laptops in a trance, no typing, no mousing, no talking. When they weren't in the conference room and you'd talk to them they often seemed stressed out about getting the project completed, but then they seemed to sit around doing nothing (while maybe one guy was working with our engineers). That was always such a conflict in my mind, since we are all busy around the clock. But here these guys were worried, but not doing anything about it. It was one of those things I just chalked up to bizarre cultural differences. Edit: we've also worked with a small Japanese startup company with maybe 4 employees, and they bust their asses all the time. So part of the culture is really a corporate culture difference as well.