Am I an alien?

This is the second morning that I've woken up waaay before the alarm went off. Sunday morning I woke up around 6:30 a.m. (went to bed at 1:30 a.m.) and Monday morning I woke up around 2 a.m. (went to bed at 10 p.m.). I expected jet lag but this is ridiculous! Michael usually is the one who has problem sleeping but it's been me the past two nights waking him up.

I haven't gotten use to the sounds inside and outside the hotel room. I hear the traffic down below and there's a clock on my nightstand that ticks (not a digital clock). The ticking is like a dripping water faucet, it gets louder by the minute. I will have to remember to either sleep on the opposite side or move the darn clock in the bathroom! The second curse I have is I can't shut off my brain. HCMC might as well be the second New Orleans...the city never sleeps. Isn't that the New Orleans slogan?

Okay, so the title of this post does have a purpose. The first alien reference pertains to my "insomnia" and the fact that I can't shut my brain down. The second alien reference pertains to my thoughts and experiences. There have been numerous events that have taken place since I arrived in HCMC. When we arrived at the airport in Vietnam, I felt so "intimidated" by the officials in Immigration and Customs. When I am spoken to in Vietnamese and the other person expects me to respond back in the native language, I feel so inadequate. I know it sounds totally ridiculous! But I feel like I am under "scrutiny" the way they respond to me. I've seen how Michael is treated differently and I can't help to wonder if it's true that some Vienamese consider me and "outsider" or even worse "racial".

This afternoon when we were walking around HCMC a group of Vietnamese people stopped us because they wanted to take a picture with the "Americans". This has been a custom of theirs as far as I can remember. I was standing in the back row making jokes about the group shot. I couldn't help think that when they go to develop the group photo, they are going to see me and say, "hey, where'd that woman come from? she wasn't in our group." Okay, so I've admitted my insecurities but this is a very common emotion that all adoptees experience. It's called "identity crisis" and it's very real. Good or bad, it's something you inherit the rest of your life, no matter what part of the world you live in. I can be seen as an "alien" in the U.S. and I can be seen as an "alien" in my homeland. So what is my purpose and where is my place in this world? Vietnamse people are a very mistrusting ncountry but that is something they have inherited for centuries.