No matter how nice you are, how pretty you files and records can be and how long you have lived in a place where you are not considered as one of the local, who would definitely think that you are not "their kind".

People only trust those similar if not identical to them, hence lots of discriminations in the world: race against race, city against country and male against female etc...

Prejudices and discriminations are legal if not outspoken and acted upon, which simply means one can do nothing about, because people are free to have the own views.

I cannot imagine a foreigner to be able to work in a governmental organisation in China, no matter how well we respect foreigners in our country, we try not to trust them. It is actually true too in many other western countries where they take in lot of immigrants who are expelled from the category of trustworthy. There are too many examples of how immigrants are not trusted and not given key and important jobs in many organisations and sectors, simply because they are outsiders, not the same kind.

The irony  is that we only ask the question silently: are you my kind?  and put into our thoughts and actions regardless the facts we may mistreat many of those capable even great. We just do not care.

That is no one’s fault, as when we look for alliance and partners, we bound to look for the dear and close, at least similar to us for a long time in our human history and it will be like that for even longer period of time.

So when you are looking for a job, a place to live in and even ask for help in a strange place, just ignore the smile and courteous words, just keep one thought in you mind, the people you are facing are asking a question in their minds: are you my kind?