An Identity Crisis and a Catch-22

For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of an ethnic mutt - I'm a quarter Polish, a quarter German, a quarter German, and the rest is mix of French, Spanish and Scottish. Thus, needless to say, it's a bit difficult for people to guess what I am on first sight. Thus, while here in Beijing, people have guessed that I am of Portuguese, Italian, and in one instance, Arab descent.  

However, several people have made one peculiar guess about my ethnic background that I've found the most surprising by far. Several TBC-ers have told me that they sincerely thought that I was of all things, Jewish.

...When that started becoming a specific ethnic group, I have no idea at all. But that's what I've been told, several times over, and thus several times over I've had to display my little cross necklace to show them that their guess was just a teensy bit off. What's even more peculiar is that this isn't a misunderstanding that I was able to clear up right at the start of the semester; the most incident occurred only a few days ago. I honestly never would expected this to happen even once, much less several times, but it did, for apparently, several characteristics of mine really throw some people off, including:

-My beard 

-My last name

-My nose (according to one person)

-My hair, which curls slightly when I let it grow too long

That's all, really; just a curious little thing that I've been experiencing throughout the semester. Besides that, not much of interest, save finals. Well, I have been having a rather....er, interesting little problem. You see, earlier on in the semester, I purchased a cheap little cell phone for use here in China. The way it works though is rather than purchasing a plan for these phones, you simply purchase minutes for them, and about two weeks ago, my phone ran out. However, after buying a phone card for 50 yuan worth of minutes, I tried to dial the number on the card to recharge the phone, and was promptly told by an automated voice in both Chinese and English, "I'm sorry, your phone is out of minutes." 

Thus was my dilemma for several days. I needed to recharge the amount of minutes on my phone, yet couldn't do so because I was out of minutes. Now though, I'm making some progress....kinda. Actually, as it turns out, I had to dial another number before I dialed the PIN number on the card I bought. These days, instead of getting an automated message, now I get a single ring before the call just inexplicably ends with a hang-up. 

China Mobile, what in the world did I ever do to YOU?