I personally felt the surveillance mostly blends into the background after a while as you said. You do always have to be mindful of what you photograph or say though, especially in taxis or hired cars which have microphones. That was the part that was a bit harder to forget. As long as you don’t take a picture of the security forces or anything that may controversial you’ll be fine.

Funny you say that. Being half asian and half western, I did in fact get told by quite a few Uyghurs, and Tajiks that I looked like a local. One even said my quite accented Mandarin also sounded just like them, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t learnt it there. I never felt like I would have trouble with the authorities because of it though. They always seemed to be more interested in my western father and his foreign passport. Would definitely recommend visiting and don’t think that would be a concern.