When you grow up fearing how to speak freely, or simply needing to keep your emotions to yourself, you learn to say them between lines. So if someone really cares about you they'll care enough to listen for them.

[It's a truth of communication in his culture, and he looks disappointed that Ben had to learn it the way he did.]

When he tells a story, all the people he knows are cast in the roles. The story is how he feels about those people, and says the parts of them he can't understand.