The writer stormed into my office. He shut the door, sat down and said, "Tom, I just can't read you."

I had asked a question about one of his stories. This set him off. He told me that he prided himself on being able to read people. It was a great skill he brought to his reporting. Yet he couldn't penetrate me. Did I like his work or not? Did I like him? Did I hate him?

I really couldn't blame him for his frustration. I've been told I have a poker face — one that rarely betrays what I'm thinking and feeling. Combine that with the fact that I am quiet and reserved, and you've got the makings of a walking, talking Asian stereotype.

I raise this not to have a big Chinaman pity-party, but to suggest that cultural differences not only affect how we report our stories, but also how we work with one another in the newsroom.

It's an issue that pertains to all journalists of color — and the different pieces of cultural baggage they bring with them. For the purposes of this column, I'll focus on Asian Americans.

In particular, as more and more Asians enter journalism (breaking the hearts of countless Asian parents who dreamed their children would become doctors and engineers), will we see more and more instances of misperception and miscommunication?

And will some of our cultural behaviors — and the misperceptions that accompany them — keep us Asians from having much influence in the rough and tumble of the newsroom?

* * *

"What's on your mind?" Chinaman asks me.

"What's on your mind?" I reply.

I've asked my imaginary friend to help me prepare for my pity-party. Sour grapes and bittersweet chocolate will anchor the menu, and we've added Gray Davis and Steve Bartman to the guest list. But it's late and our conversation has dissipated into silence. Often, our get-togethers are like the staring contests we all had as kids. Only we never burst out laughing, never even crack a smile.

The problem is that neither of us can read the other. Each of us is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Finally, I unravel a bit.

"OK, Chinaman, here's the thing," I say. "To lead a staff, you have to be a cheerleader of sorts. You have to show people that you're excited and that you care about them. I'm a passionate journalist. My emotions run deep. But I have trouble conveying that. Is that because I'm Asian?"

"Nah," he says, smacking his lips on some carry-out moo shu pork. "That's just cuz you're a dweeb."

"But if that's the case, if it just comes down to individual behavior, why aren't more Asian Americans in leadership positions in newsrooms?" I ask. "I guess I'm worried that there's something in our culture that makes us behave a certain way, that makes other people feel uncomfortable and misunderstand us. And so our impact and influence are diminished."

"That's just you throwing the culture card," Chinaman says. "It absolves you of taking responsibility for your own behavior. Loosen up, chump. Start smiling a little more. Besides, who cares if a few Asiatics don't make it to the top?"

"Um, not really my point," I say. "My bigger worry is that, with so few Asian editors, how are we ever going to cover the different Asian communities in any realistic way? I'm worried that those communities will continue to be as impenetrable — or at least perceived to be so — as some of us Asian journalists are."

"Martin Yan," Chinaman muses, referring to the manic TV chef. "Be more effusive, like Martin Yan. That's your ticket to glory."

* * *

Which is not to say this is solely a cultural thing.

I know plenty of Asians who are loud and extroverted, who rail on about their emotions at the drop of a hat. (Some of them, no doubt, will be singing at your neighborhood karaoke bar tonight.)

And my inability to automatically reveal what I'm feeling has as much to do with my individual personality and my family upbringing as it does my parents' Chinese culture.

And yet. And yet. As much as the "inscrutable," "enigmatic," and "impassive" Asian is a stereotype, there's some truth to it. Similarly, it's probably true that some cultures are more regimented than others, and some are more fatalistic, and some are more argumentative, and some are more comfortable with the display of passion and emotion.

I'm still worried, though, about my stony silence.

In June, Los Angeles Times reporter Benedict Carey wrote a story about scientific research conducted on neutral facial expressions. "When people react with affectionate attention and good humor, the effect is physically soothing," he wrote. "A poker face is upsetting because it defies even minimal expectations. As psychologists have found, people tend to mentally project onto a blank screen their own anxieties: He thinks I'm boring; she thinks I'm stupid.

"The result is that the suppression of emotions comes across as mild hostility, even if it's not meant that way."

I can't help but think of a character on "Banzai!," the awful parody of a Japanese game show that aired on the Fox network this summer. The character, Lady One Question, would walk up to a celebrity like Simon Cowell and pose a question as if she were a TV reporter.

The celebrity would go on and on with his answer, and Lady One Question would simply stare at him, saying nothing more, her face expressionless. The celebrity would grow more and more uncomfortable, ramble a bit and then awkwardly find a way to break off.

Lady One Question made me uncomfortable because I could see some of myself in her. It made me wonder how many people have thought I was bored, or disengaged, or angry, even as I was listening intently and thinking about what they had to say.

* * *

I asked the writer to lunch. I told him about how my parents had fled mainland China as Mao's army advanced, how they had lived in Taiwan for several years, and how they had immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s.

I told him how stories about immigrants and diverse communities were so important to me, and how that passion drove me as a journalist. I told him that I had loved to write, ever since I was a child. Even though I studied to become an engineer, the love of writing inspired me to become a journalist.

The lunch didn't solve everything, and there is still much to be revealed, but it was a start.

I wanted to tell him: The world works in strange ways. And we are all enigmas. Even those of us who seem easier to read.