Mistaken

"Ah, Teacher... I was wanting to know where your parents are from."

I smiled as I looked up from the papers I was putting away after class. My student's expression was genuinely curious, her forehead crinkled slightly between her eyebrows.

"They're from America."

"Oh."

I couldn't help but laugh. I knew where she was going with this because it was not the first time I had been asked this question since coming to China... or in the past week.

"Did you think one of my parents is from China?"

She smiled. "Yes. You look Chinese, I think."

She's not the only one either. A week ago at Fellowship, a man argued with me for a good five minutes about my heritage. When I said that no, I did not have any Chinese in my family tree (that I know of), he insisted otherwise.

"But you must be Chinese. You do not look like the other Americans." When he called over his friend to take a look at me, I knew it was time to just give in. I agreed that, perhaps, I do have Chinese in my family line and that I would have to do some research when I got home. This seemed to satisfy him.

So when my sweet student asked me the same question after class, I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised when I began reading through a few of the response cards I had my students fill out during class and found these gems:

"I like your class. It's interesting. You look like Chinese."

"The teacher is so nice. I think she looks like a Chinese girl."

What's even funnier is that it's not only the locals who mistake me for a Chinese girl--my own teammates have done it too.

Case in point: Walking to dinner the other night, Dan does a double-take as we pass a student and says, "Woah, for a second there, I thought that was Lauren."

I kid you not.

In light of these recent events, I have decided to incorporate a new weekly feature on my blog:

Number of Times I Have Been Mistaken for an Asian: 9.

(That's getting close to double-digits, people... and it ain't stopping there.)