Written by Anisha Shinde
“Wait, you’re from Shanghai?” The girl I’ve just met on move-in day lights up. “My mom’s from Shanghai too!” And suddenly, we’re off—swapping stories about Nanjing East Road, debating which Yang’s Dumplings location is best, laughing about our grandparents. I’ve visited Shanghai every year, and now all those memories I could barely talk about back home are spilling out. It feels good. The specific smell of the metro, that one street vendor, the way my grandmother speaks—things I kept mostly to myself in Singapore suddenly became this instant bond with someone I met twenty minutes ago. But walking back to my room later, something sits strangely in my chest. Not bad strange. Just… different.
In Singapore, my heritage was a fact. In London, it became a conversation starter.
Back home, being mixed was simply who I was. I went to an Indian international school, where my Chinese side lived quietly in the background, surfacing only at home. Chinese food for dinner was normal; visiting Shanghai every year was just what we did, but I rarely had people to share those experiences with outside my house. My Indian side had more space—Hindi at the temple, going to my aunt’s house for every festival, and school friends who just understood those references. I’d look forward to dandiya with my friends every year, not because we were making a statement, but rather because that’s what we did. Being half-Chinese, half-Indian wasn’t something I wore proudly outside my family— it was just quietly, unremarkably me.
London changed that. Suddenly, both sides of my heritage became things I could actively use. Not in a calculated way, but as bridges to other people, ways to find community in a city where I knew nobody. Meeting someone from Shanghai meant I finally had someone who got those references I’d been storing up. Dancing garba at London’s Navratri celebrations meant connecting with other Indians who understood that specific joy. For the first time, I was putting both cultures out there— not just experiencing them at home, but using them as part of how I introduced myself as a fresher.
When I celebrated dandiya here with my new Indian friends from LSE, it was the same music, the same steps. We were laughing, spinning, having the best time. But it felt different from doing it with my Singaporean school friends, whom I’d grown up with. Dandiya was just something we did together, not the reason we came together. These were people I’d met weeks ago, people I connected with because we’d both grown up celebrating Navratri.
It unsettled me at first—I’d never worn my cultures this openly before. In Singapore, they were just part of the background of my life. Here, they became part of how I put myself out there, how I found my people. And that felt strange because it was so intentional, so visible, so different from the quiet, unremarkable way I’d lived them before.
But here’s the thing: it’s been good. Really good. I’ve built genuine friendships and a strong community here through these connections. Yes, it’s bittersweet. I do miss when my heritage didn’t need to be a conversation starter, when it was just the air I breathed. But, London’s teaching me that both modes of belonging matter.
And I’m grateful for that. For the Shanghai conversations I never got to have before. For the dandiya nights with new friends. Learning that home isn’t just where culture feels easy, but also where you choose to create it, one shared story at a time. And that’s not a loss, it’s just different. Maybe even richer.
