It sounds like a bad joke: a Chinese man turned down for a job in a Chinese country by a Chinese because he looked Chinese. But PNS commentator Tony Shen finds that the idea that an American is a white person prevails in Taiwan much as it does in Kansas City -- with unhappy effects in all places.

"We don't hire people who look Chinese," was the first thing she said.

I had prepared myself for the usual job interview queries like "Tell me about your relevant experience," and "Why do you want to work for us?"

This, the fastest interview of my life, did not take place in a small Louisiana town in 1930, but in 1997 in a city of more than a million in Taiwan.

Not only was I summarily denied employment because of my race, a Chinese had denied me (a Chinese-American) a job in a Chinese country because I looked Chinese.

I was applying to teach English at a large language school in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In Taiwan -- where kids typically spend at least six years studying English in regular and after-school programs -- schools fall over each other to get native English speaking teachers. The demand is so great that almost anyone born in an English-speaking area can easily earn $20 to $30 an hour. There were at least ten "English teachers" staying in my youth hostel -- but none had any teaching experience and none spoke Chinese. The hostel's common room was dominated by large bulletin boards with names and numbers of local schools pleading for teachers, and morning arrivals often lined up jobs starting that evening.

In short, the job search in Taiwan is truly a snap, unless you're not white. I had strolled into several English schools equipped with my Stanford diploma, elementary school teaching experience, and Chinese language skills only to be told that the school preferred "western" teachers.

Even some of those who learned that I was born and raised in America still doubted my "Americaness" and praised my accent and command of English. One friend -- an Australian-born Chinese -- was offered a position but at a salary 20 percent below that of the school's newly hired white teachers, even though he was bilingual and officially certified to teach English while the others were not.

When confronted about their discrimination, administrators retort that a western-looking instructor draw more students. The Taiwanese want American teachers and to be American is to be white. In fact, in nine months in China and Taiwan, almost every time I said I was American the news was received with a shake of the head, and the reply, "But you look Chinese." However, the confusion in most of Asia goes beyond equating American with white. The belief is that the entire English-speaking world is all white. Thus, a native English teacher must be white.

A similar racism operates in the United States -- here, when people ask me where I am from they expect me to say China, Japan, or another Asian land. When they hear I was born in Colorado, they often ask where my parents are from and whether I speak the corresponding Asian language.

Still Taiwan, unlike America, has a climate that accepts people and companies that bluntly proclaim they hire whites only. Taiwanese laws and norms openly tolerate racist views -- but where do these views originate? Perhaps Asians see all Americans as white for the same reason that in the U.S. the term "American" is reserved for people who look white. (Thus MSNBC's Olympic coverage recently trumpeted "American Beats Kwan.") Others are only half American: Chinese-American, Mexican-American, and African-American.

When people turn on their TVs to see those representing and controlling the U.S., they overwhelmingly see white politicians and business leaders. But until the people in Kaohsiung, Beijing, and Kansas City recognize that their seemingly innocuous figures of speech reflect thoughts that draw the lines between us and them, Americans and outsiders, America can never really include people whose parents weren't from Europe.

Shen is a freelance journalist recently returned from an extended stay in Taiwan.