Yeah, this one is weird. I spoke to a travel agent over the phone who said "the landlord wants to know where you are from".
My response let her know that I was fairly pissed off about this and she started going on about how it's completely normal normal for landlords to ask this. I assumed that it was more about whether I was Chinese or white, but on reflection it was probably more to find out if the English-speaking guy was Indian. I'd almost expect some degree of prejudice in many countries, but to have it so in-my-face was quite surprising.