One of the intriguing aspects of being a native-speaker of English is all the accents you learn growing up. Italian. Spanish. German. Every native-speaker can peg an accent with ease.

I always assumed, growing up, if I even ever thought about it, that this would be the same with other cultures, other languages.

It's not. At least not with all languages, all cultures.

If you're an American who can speak some Chinese in China, of course the first question is where you're from. Sometimes I ask how my pronunciation is. They tell me it's good, though I know that's not true.

Many people are just surprised to hear a foreigner speaking Chinese, no matter how bad it is.