Seconding this. Anecdotally, the more multicultural a space is, the more it trends towards "ask".
They will say "yes" to everything, no matter what, and then never ever ask a followup question.
For example, if assigned a task that I know they cannot possibly complete (i.e.: due to a lack of access), they'll say "yes" and then... I won't hear from them again.
A week later, the conversation will go like this:
"Have you started on the task?"
"Yes."
"How? I haven't seen you log in to the source control system, and thinking about it, I don't think you have access."
"Yes."
"So, do you have access?"
"Yes."
"How? Can you check out the source code successfully?"
"Yes."
"Can you show me what you've done."
"Umm... yes."
"That's an empty folder!"
"Yes, I don't have access, so this is all I can do."
Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that doesn’t sound like an “ask” culture- that sounds like a “yes-man” situation.
What have you done?
What is your next step?
A lot of people will hear "why" as accusatory: "why did you do it this way?!" becomes a question about culpability rather than causality; "what" is (apparently) what you want to use: "what led you to make these choices?"
(it's probably a moving target tho, although one that moves slowly)