I recently met a Chinese man

I recently met a Chinese man and got to know that his name was Kannaswami.

I asked him, "How did you ever get a name like that being a Chinese?"

He said -"Many, many years ago when I first went to USA, I was standing in line at the Political Asylums Immigration Counter. The man in front of me was a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee.
The white lady at the counter looked at him and asked 'What is your name?' He replied 'Kannaswami'.

Then she looked at me and asked 'What's your name?'

I said, 'Sem Ting'."