Identity Crisis?

My appearance has never been so interesting to me and others than when I ride taxis and go grocery shopping.  Jordan is very homogeneously Arabic, and anybody who looks different sticks out like a sore thumb.  When I buy my lunch, the grocers and customers do not even attempt to hide their stares and will automatically communicate with me in English.  The attempt at English communication is nice, but the stares are disconcerting at best and I often feel the rudeness of them (though I do understand the curiosity).

However, I'm starting to experience a great deal of culture shock from my appearance.  I dress in very quintessentially American styles and speak English fluently with an American accent.  When the taxi drivers speak to me in English, I have always assumed that it was because they knew I was from America.

Once or twice, the drivers will ask me where I'm from, to which I'll respond America.  To my surprise, every single one of them are called me out and told me that I am not American.  They pointed to my eyes and signaled my face, and told me that I looked Chinese.  Indeed I do look Chinese, and I am ethnically Chinese, but I was raised in America and know so little about the Chinese language and culture that I've never truly considered that for myself.  I have always considered myself a typical American youth - and now - and typical American college student.

To be stared at, to be pointed out so blatantly as foreign, and then to realize that they see me not as the foreigner that I see myself but as somebody else entirely is disconcerting. I've pushed back and firmly told the drivers each time that no even despite how I appeared I was American. I welcome these moments, because they are an opportunity for me to show that one's identity is more than their appearance.