Personal Narrative: What Exactly Do You Come From

Where to you come from? Where exactly do you come from? These are the kind of questions that have been circulating around me for many years, as a child, who was born in Finland, but raised by Chinese parents, I do not know how to position myself in the complicated modern society. Whenever people in Finland ask me where I come from, I always answer by saying that I am Finnish. Completely stunned by my response, they often have a quick follow-up question: “Where exactly do you come from?” The first time when I was asked this question, it made me feel that I was different from other Finnish people. It was this moment that I realised I was still perceived as a foreigner, with a different appearance and skin colour. It was hard for me to admit this, since I have lived in Finland nearly for my whole life.

At home, I would speak Shanghainese, which is a form of Chinese dialect. It is a language that sounds very delicate and exquisite, but unfortunately there are less and less people speaking Shanghainese, as most of the people would only speak the mainstream Chinese, called the Mandarin Chinese. Shanghainese is very special for me, as it could unofficially be regarded as my mother tongue. It was the only language that I knew, until I started to learn English in the kindergarten. This was the first time that I had a chance to interact with other people in another language. I absorbed to new sounds and words from the surrounding, as I spent time talking to my friends. I soon grew accustomed to the language as time went by. I learned the alphabets, which were completely new to me, and different from my native