Firstly, I was born and bred in California. I consider myself American and I'm fluent in English and speak in an american accent.

Unfortunately (well actually I don't feel unfortunate about it other than this case), my parents are Chinese and I have a Chinese name (surname and given name).

I'm trying to move to China to become an English teacher and been sending resumes across and it's been very difficult. Largely I get ignored. However, some of my friends who have "white" names, well they can't seem to get enough offers. We have very similar resumes all having gone to the same college and done the same TESOL qualification.

This leads me to believe that it's the name that's putting people off. It kind of makes sense. Who would you want to be teaching you English? Mr. Smith or Mr. Wang?

So yeah I don't know what else to do? I've actually started listing the languages I know on my resume like this

• English (fluent)
• Mandarin (intermediate)

Mandarin is actually not required for the job and I'm actually fluent at it. But it's just there so I can highlight the fact I'm fluent in English.

But no, doesn't seem to help.

It's gotten to the point I feel like maybe I should change my name, at least on my resume, and then after I get a phone interview, I can mention that my name is not my formal name. Somehow that just feels a tad degrading doing that...

What else could I do?