I don't think that attitude is unique to Chinese people. My experience is based on my name rather than looks. Whenever people from my father's country ask me my name, they suddenly expect me to speak their language - and then to tell me what a shame it is when I don't. I've seen the same for British Germans, Polish and Vietnamese too!

One of my computer science professors who defected from Cold War Hungary was very anxious to meet me. It turns out that my Korean Catholic name is also a perfectly cromulent Hungarian name!

Well, that makes sense. If they thought you were a Chinese person, I could see why they would have asked you if you could read Chinese.

By that point in the conversation, however, I had already conveyed that my parents were from Korea, and I was born and had grown up here.