Unbelievable, some people say to me,”Are you German?”, “Vous parlez Vietnamese?”, “ From India?”,”Filipino”, or the worst one is,”Do you come from America?”
These bizarre questions came in various ways. I could recall what happened when a classmate thought I came from German because of my name (my name is used by one tenth of German men). In Europe, when I asked for a direction to Asian woman in a museum, tried to speak French, the woman replied,”Vous parlez Vietnamese? Oh no, she mistakenly thought I was Vietnamese.

On my last travel, an Asian looking man approached me and said,”Are you from India?”. Oops
On the other day, I was taking night photos when a Javanese looking woman smiled and talked to me,”Filipino?” oops another mistake, we eventually talked and she introduced me to her husband. Due to her Javanese look I almost spoke Indonesian many times, instead of using English. Fortunately before I met her, a few hours before, I met an Indonesian family who spoke Javanese in a Metro station. They thought I could be Filipino, not Indonesian.

In a different city, I was also taking night photos with my tripod when an old couple tried to take similar photos in the intersection. They couldn’t speak English so I had to converse in French (our French is obviously quite limited). They tried to elaborate the good and favorite locations for night photos until they said,”America?”. Ooh no, another mistake again...
On the metro on the next few days, some tourists thought I couldn’t speak English, hehehe perhaps I seem a bit like local people. I was also confused when these non-English-speaking locals spoke to me with their mother tongue, hehehehe. Therefore I used the sign language, I mean showing my smile and grin.

Taken from my autumn break backpacking.