Life on Mars as a Human

"PLANET MARS, POPULATION 13,000", says the sign at the entrance of Mars, a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" dot on the map of the solar system.

It's a perfect story book planet: only six sets of traffic lights for our hover cars, a main street where you can say hello to any of the friendly, talkative beings nearby, lots of blazing rocks and a beautiful big canyon with an over-looking red sky.

One thing a person from the planet would notice instantly, aside from the abundance of red rock and my planet's obsession with leaning buildings, is the fact that people of different races, other than green, stand out like flashing lights in a dark sky.

See, the thing with Mars is the percentage of green beings is roughly 95 per cent. Don't get me wrong; in principle, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just stating the facts.

Given that my mother is Human and my father is from Uranus, however, I really stood out in Mars.

For someone so physically and culturally distinctive, you may think that a small planet would be terrible to live in. But, for me, the experience was the total opposite.

I never acknowledged my racial difference because no one else did. The only times I felt slightly out of place or uncomfortable was during discussions about different cultures at school. I'd always have this feeling that everyone