A woman in her 40s starts talking to me in the elevator.
Woman: “Your facial features are beautiful.”
I: “Thanks.”
W: “Are you Chinese?”
I: “No, I’m Austrian.”
W: “How come you speak Chinese fluently then?”
Has anyone ever mistaken you for being from a country different from your country of origin because of your language skills? I’d love to read your comments.
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China elevator stories 
People in Taiwan think I am from Israel because I have Jewish heritage. That’s about it. 🙂
I would like to visit Austria. My dad went while he was living in Germany. 🙂
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Austria is definitely worth a visit. If you ever make it to Europe, be sure to include it in your travel itinerary ;-).
Btw, I like your name – it reminds me of Eileen Chang, one of the first Chinese writers I read in Chinese.
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Haha, okay. Eileen is an Irish version of Helen and my Chinese last name is Huang. You can give credit to the Irish, though. xD
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well, more because of my lack of language skills. On my second day back after a year in the US I was outside, walking around when a kid in my neighborhood came up to me and asked me a bunch of questions. My brain hadn’t switched over from English to German so I answered in weird splattering ramblings of English, German and a lot of ähms … prompting him to ask me where I was from 🙂
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I can totally relate. When I was back in Austria from China for only a day or so, the salesclerk asked me if I had a few cents in coins and I wasn’t even able to reply with a simple no in German.
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I was born and bred in Britain, therefore I speak native English – not many people call be British though…
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