That’s not really an example of cultural lying- that’s an example of a fixed answer to a fixed question.

When somebody sneezes and you say “bless you” you’re not expressing your belief in god, and you’re not lying about one either.

> that’s an example of a fixed answer to a fixed question.

That's my whole point! The expected answer seems pretty obvious to you, given the context, doesn't it? Why then are you surprised that a different culture has an equally obvious (to them) fixed answer ("Yes") to any question asked by someone with power/authority to their lesser? Both depend on mutual learned cultural awareness, and can fail spectacularly in cross-cultural contexts.

Edit: my regional favorite is "We should meet for lunch some time" which just means "I'm heading out now", but you have to decode the meaning from the nature of the relationship, passive voice usage, and the lack of temporal specificity.

They're called phatic expressions.