To gain an in-depth understanding of the causes of the often implicit misunderstandings between Western supervisors and their Chinese doctoral students, we examined my lived experiences as a Chinese international doctoral student under the supervision of my Australian supervisors. Our data revealed how misunderstandings arose and evolved from mismatched assumptions that are rooted in the home and host cultures. We found that I was able to gain new insight in three key ways: developing self-confidence in driving my own research; re-conceptualising 'critical thinking'; and re-evaluating my own gendered social construction as an independent researcher. We reconsidered the possible roles of misunderstandings as catalysts for positive development of independent judgment.