Excuse me, are you Chinese?

I am one of those people whom other people feel compelled to ask advice of in public places, such as "What kind of apple should I buy for baking?" and "Do you think I should quit my job and start a commune?" I have been asked, by complete strangers, what a yam is and where to find one, whether it would be silly to put a nice floral rug in one's kitchen, and whether it ever gets any easier to prepare one's house for an impending in-law visit. I do my best to deter these types of questions, using such well-known tactics as avoiding eye contact while walking briskly through a store, wearing a big sign that says DO NOT ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS -- I DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING, etc. But some people are just determined to ask anyway.

But last week I hit a new record in Weird Questions Asked by Strangers. I was idly browsing through some slacks at a department store when I heard a thickly accented voice beside me ask, "Are you Chinese?"

I turned to look at the questioner, a smallish middle-aged man who appeared -- although I am no expert in these things -- to be Chinese himself. He was holding two women's blouses in his hand. I was certain I had not heard him correctly. I stared at him questioningly.

"Are you Chinese?" he repeated.

Still not sure he'd really said what I thought he'd said, but figuring it wasn't going to get any clearer, I just shook my head. My head shaking might have been accompanied by a look that clearly indicated what I thought of the question.

But he wasn't satisfied. "You're not Chinese?" he said, giving me one more chance to change my mind.

I finally remembered how to open my mouth and told him "No" in a tone meant to convey "No, but I might possibly be part Labrador."

Granted, I don't exactly look Scandinavian, but neither do I look Chinese, or any other Asian ethnicity. Of course there is nothing wrong with looking Chinese -- if one is Chinese. But I could not fathom how a person of one ethnicity would not recognize someone else as being or not being of that same ethnicity. I became obsessed with trying to figure out why this man had pegged me for one of his countrywomen.

I went home and called my sister. She doesn't look Chinese either, but if the two of us were standing next to each other, and I was a stranger bent on asking personal questions, I would sooner ask her if she was Chinese than I would ask me.

"Do I look Chinese?" I demanded.

She considered the question for some time, which did nothing to reassure me. "Well," she said hesitantly, "there is that one baby picture of you that's sort of...well, you know, it makes you wonder. Not that I think you really are, or anything," she added hastily.

I called my mom next. "Am I adopted?" I demanded.

She sighed. "Not that again," she said. I was convinced, when I was younger, that I was adopted, and that my parents, for unknown reasons, refused to admit it. My mother, not unreasonably, grew tired of my continual insistence that I had been born to someone else.

I told her about a complete stranger asking me if I belonged to his race. "Do I look Chinese?" I asked her.

"No, of course you don't look Chinese," she said. "You look German, Hungarian, Romanian, English, and Welsh."

This made me feel somewhat better, but I still wasn't satisfied. "What about that picture of me when I was a baby?" I said. "I look Asian in that picture. Are you sure I wasn't --"

"Look," she said, wanting to settle this issue once for all, "I was there when you were born. You caused me a lot of pain, and I threw your father out of the hospital room because he caused me a lot of pain. Trust me, you are not Chinese."

But with my track record with strangers, one of these days someone is going to come along in the grocery store and ask, "Excuse me, are you African American...?"