Are you guys angry?

Three days ago, I went to have dinner with one of my Mexican clients, E, in New York City. He came to New York to have meetings with some banks here and since I am in NY on vacation, we decided to have dinner together and talk about some new trading business opportunities. He came with his sales manager J and we ate at a Greek restaurant, Milos. We had a great time there.

E is a funny guy. Last year I traveled with him to 10 Chinese cities in two weeks to purchase steel products. He did not give me enough time to set up meetings for him, so I had to make phone calls to many steel mills while we were already on our way to their offices (of course I had been in contact with those steel mills before E's arrival without confirming to them the date for the meetings). By the end of the business trip, we made a summary at Shanghai Pudong International airport. While discussing the following-ups we needed to do to conclude the deals, E suddenlyl started to laugh and said:" I have to tell you this. You know what? Every time when you made a cell phone call to a steel mill and you begun to talk in Chinese, after a while, I thought that probably there wouldn't be any chance for us to get the meeting set up since the way you talked, in Chinese, really made me feel that neither you nor the person who you were talking to was in a good mood. Of course, you were not shouting, but I just felt that way. However, when you finished the phone call, you turned to me and told me in Spanish--Good news, they want to meet us! How wonderful!" Then we both laughed. 

When I worked in Mexico City, during the weekend, Chinese staff in the company we would drive company's van to make some short-distance trips. We always had an informal meeting to discuss where to go on  Friday during lunch break at the office. Mexican colleagues usually went out for lunch and would come back after 2 hours. One Friday we did it again but Yohana, a Mexican girl, was on diet so she stayed at the office to eat some fruits. We had several options so we discussed almost about 20 minutes. We finally made up our minds and everyone went back to his/her place happily. Yohana had her cube in front of mine. After I sat down, she turned to me and asked (when she asked me this, she looked pretty worried): "What happened? Why were you guys so angry?"

Why the way we talk to others, in Chinese, would cause misunderstanding and confusions among foreigners? Maybe we are just too tense? When we make a business call, we only think about the issue that we need to get through and we speak very fast and dry? When we are with friends, we also speak fast for sometimes they do not let you finish your words so the only way to fully express oneself at once is to speak faster and louder? Maybe we shall try to relax and slow down a little bit or maybe it's just a cultural thing that we do not need to change?