At U.S.-China shirt-sleeves summit, formalities and suspicions abound Once the meetings began Friday, Obama and Xi's conversations were often stilted. Neither speaks the other's language fluently, and they opted against the simultaneous translation often used in such instances, so their statements were interrupted every couple of sentences by interpreters. This slowed down the talks and prevented spontaneous back-and-forth. Despite all the buzz about dispensing with diplomatic formalities at Sunnylands, rigid customs were mostly maintained. Most of the talks occurred at a long table where Obama and Xi each were flanked by an interpreter and six advisers, with note-takers from each country sitting in the corner. One of the few signs of informality was the dress code: Everyone, and they were all men, wore suit jackets and white dress shirts, but no neckties. Yet for the Chinese - whose engagements with the United States historically have been formal, sometimes stifling, and dictated by diplomatic talking points - agreeing to come to Sunnylands at all, free as it was of the ceremonial trappings of state visits to Washington, was considered an unusual gesture. "The president had very good discussions in an informal atmosphere - uniquely informal atmosphere - with President Xi," said Thomas E. Donilon, Obama's national security adviser, who negotiated with the Chinese over planning the summit and participated in the meetings. "If you go back through studying each of the encounters between an American president and the leadership of China since President Nixon's historic meeting in February of 1972 in China, I think the uniqueness and the importance of a number of aspects of this encounter really come to the fore," Donilon told reporters. Obama has a few things in common with Xi. They both spent time in rural Iowa - Obama as a presidential candidate and Xi as a young provincial officer researching agriculture - and Xi has enrolled his daughter at Harvard University, where Obama studied law. U.S. officials had hoped that the relaxed setting of this Rancho Mirage retreat - built at the intersection of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra drives as a winter getaway by the late billionaires Walter and Leonore Annenberg - might nurture trust. On Saturday morning, Obama and Xi spent about 50 minutes talking one on one, something China experts called an extraordinary occurrence. They took a leisurely stroll around the landscaped grounds, past an artificial pond and over a bridge, and retired in the shade on a bench that Obama had custom-built from a California redwood tree as a gift for Xi.