The rest of our week as tourists in Helsinki ends all too quickly. The Monday after is the day Aksel has to return to work, which also means it is the first day I am left to my own devices.

The first day that real life begins again.

The past week has been fun, mostly because it's been reminiscent of our exchange days in Edinburgh. We got to explore the city like a couple of travellers. It had felt like we were simply travelling and were due back home in a few days. But now, watching Aksel all dressed in formal office wear for work, it hit me that this is supposed to be home from now on.

"Don't worry," he tells me, kissing me goodbye after breakfast. "You'll be fine. Take your time to settle in first. Job-hunting can wait a while more."

I have a good amount saved up in the event I don't find a job immediately, but I do need to get a job as soon as possible. Aksel hasn't discussed the details of the rent for our apartment with me, but I want to start contributing to our life together. And for that, I need a job. But first...

"I'm thinking of going to the supermarket today," I tell him. "You know, check things out, buy some groceries I'll need."

He pauses by the door, as if thinking about something. "I could get my friends to go with you," he says, "I know some of them are free today."

I frown at him, not understanding why I would need his friends to accompany me to the supermarket. It's a supermarket. Isn't grocery shopping the same all over the world?

"There's no need for that," I say, "I can go alone."

Besides, meeting his friends without him around to break the ice? It sounds far too awkward for my liking.

"It's fine," he insists, already reaching into his pocket for his phone. "I'll get them to meet you downstairs in an hour, okay?"

"Aksel," I say, but he leans in for another quick kiss, which distracts me.

"I have to go now," he says, pulling away. "Remember – downstairs in an hour, all right?"

"Aksel," I repeat, but he's already gone. I pout at the door for a minute, feeling somewhat indignant about being assigned babysitters for a trip to the supermarket, of all places. But it would be rude to leave on my own now, now that he's contacted them. Sighing to myself, I turn back to the bedroom to get ready.

An hour later, I make my way slowly down the stairs to the main entrance of the building. On the last landing closest to the ground floor, I see them. Aksel's friends. There are two of them, and they're both leaning against the wall near the front doors, chatting quietly in Finnish. One is a tall, slender blonde girl, and the other is a well-built brown-haired guy who looks even taller than Aksel.

I slowly walk down the rest of the way, my boots tapping steadily against the cement steps. The two look up briefly, run their gazes over me, then turn back to their conversation again. I pause on the last step, knowing that Aksel didn't mention my heritage to them.

Then again, he has never focused that much on the way I look. To him, I've always been German. Aksel sees me a little differently from how other people do.

I briefly contemplate walking straight past them out of the door, then shake my head at myself. It's not their fault for assuming, at first glance, that I'm not the German girl they think they're waiting for.

Before I can lose my nerve, I walk up to them. "Hi," I say awkwardly. "Are you... Aksel's friends?"

They both stare at me for a long moment. I can see the flicker of surprise in both their eyes as they readjust their original expectations. Finally, the girl clears her throat and smiles, a little belatedly. "Hi. You're Emilie?"

"Yeah," I say, trying for a smile. "That's me."

She stretches out a hand and I take it automatically. "I'm Lumi."

"Nice to meet you," I say, "I'm Emilie." Then I trail off, feeling stupid. Of course, they already knew that.

"I'm Janne," says the guy, reaching over to shake my hand as well.

"Hi," I repeat. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too." Lumi looks towards Janne, as if seeking help for what to say next. He simply shrugs at her. She turns back to me, smiling helplessly. "Well, I guess we should get going, then."

I smile back, feeling equally at a loss of what to say. "Sure."

As we push out of the building, Lumi asks me, "We're going to the supermarket, yes?"

"Yeah," I say, gesturing futilely at my empty hands. But you can't really gesture to your hands, only at something else with your hands. I stop when I realise how stupid it must make me look. "But I forgot to pack my grocery bag. In Finland, do you–"

"Oh, don't worry," Lumi says. "You can buy a bag at the store."

I want to ask what the practice of checking out at Finnish supermarkets is like, if it's the same as in Germany, but I can't bring myself to ask such a simple question. I'll find out when I get there, I suppose. I really don't know why Aksel insisted on bothering his friends for this. I can figure out things for myself – I'm not entirely lost on my own in a foreign land. I survived on my own in Edinburgh, didn't I?

"Do you want to take the tram or should we walk?" Lumi asks.

"The tram, probably?" I suggest. It's going to be a shorter journey – less awkward small talk that way. Besides, I don't want to waste any more of their time than I already am.

"Thanks for coming with me," I say then, remembering my manners too late. "Sorry for taking up your free day."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Lumi says, smiling. She is really friendly. Janne is less welcoming, walking stoically by her side. "We didn't have much to do, anyway."

"Do you live nearby?" I ask. I'd feel bad if they came all the way from the other side of the city just to go with me on this unnecessary expedition.

"Well... Close enough," Lumi says, after a slight hesitation. "We were in the neighbourhood, anyway."

"Oh." I consider apologising again, then decide that would be a little too excessive. This is all Aksel's fault, anyway.

We come to the tram stop soon enough. There are two other people waiting at the stop, but everyone is standing more than slightly apart from each other. Lumi and Janne also come to a stop more than a metre away from the closest person.

"Do you have a travel card?" Lumi asks me.

"Do I need one to get on the tram?" I suddenly remember that things are different here. I have a season ticket in Hamburg, so I don't have to worry much about such things, but even if I didn't, you can buy single trip tickets on the spot from ticketing vending machines or bus drivers. But I am not in Germany anymore. I can no longer take it for granted that things work the same way here. Aksel drives, so we haven't needed to take public transport at all in the past week. I've forgotten to ask him about the way public transport works here. "I don't have one. Where can I get one?"

"It's okay," Lumi reassures me quickly. "You can buy a ticket from the tram driver. But a travel card will be cheaper in the long run, so getting one would be more convenient."

"I'll keep that in mind," I say, making a mental note of it. I'll have to find out where to buy a travel card – maybe the main train station?

"So... You're from Germany?" Lumi asks delicately, after we wait in silence for a while. Maybe she's simply trying to find a topic of conversation, but this question pricks me like a thorn in my side.

"Yes," I say. I try to hide my annoyance, but I know my tone comes out short. It's all too obvious, what she's really asking. Just as I know she doesn't mean anything by it.

"Oh," she says, lapsing into silence. But Janne picks up where she left off.

"When Aksel told us he got himself a German girlfriend, we all thought..."

Lumi gives Janne a look, and he falls silent.

"Yeah," I say, laughing a little, to try to brazen it out. "It's a bit of a shock, isn't it?"

"You're part-Asian?" Lumi asks. She's trying not to scrutinise my features, I know – trying not to do the usual she has European eyes, an Asian nose type of comparison that people usually engage in when they first meet me. Not that it usually does them much good – I do look a lot more like my Mama than my Papa. Sometimes I wish it was the other way around. I wouldn't stick out so much then.

"Yeah, I'm mixed."

"Cool," says Lumi. "That's really interesting."

I shrug, smiling awkwardly. It really isn't. I envy people like her – and Janne, and Aksel. People who know exactly where they come from; people who can trace their lineage back to the Middle Ages, whose ancestors first settled in the region centuries ago, who have history. Of course, I probably have an equally rich and long-lasting heritage on both sides of my family, but amid all the moving and cultural hybridisation, we have lost what other people would call roots. My ancestry on my father's side is easier to trace; that on my mother's side, however... Singapore is a nation of immigrants, and my mother's grandparents had been immigrants themselves. Mama has long since gotten German citizenship, but she is still considered an immigrant. And me?

I have become an immigrant in Finland now.

None of us have stayed where we're supposed to. And sometimes, looking at the real Europeans, or the real Asians... I regret that.

How would it feel to look around and just know that this is irrevocably your country, where you belong, where nobody will ever question your right to be here? I will never know that feeling.

The tram comes then, and everyone drifts towards the doors. Lumi and Janne wait on the right side of the doors, letting the passengers within exit the tram before they board. I follow suit.

"Hi," I say to the driver, feeling his eyes – along with everyone else's in earshot – land on me. "Ehm... I need one ticket, please?"

"Three euros," he says.

I pay him three euros, take my ticket, and go to join Lumi and Janne, who are waiting for me towards the back of the carriage.

"All right?" Lumi asks, and I nod, flashing my ticket. She acts a little like Aksel – I can see why they're friends. The tram starts, and the three of us stand in a half-circle. I'm not sure where to look, because the silence is making me nervous.

"How are you finding Helsinki so far?" Lumi asks then. She's trying to make conversation, trying harder than I am. The stereotypes of Finns being shy and socially awkward must not be that true.

Or maybe I'm the one who's socially awkward. All I know is, I am acutely conscious of how some passengers on the tram are surreptitiously glancing in our direction every now and then. I try to ignore them, even though I am aware that it must be me they're staring at, and also the fact that we're speaking in English.

"Really nice," I say to Lumi now. "Way too cold, but it's all right. Aksel has shown me some places. We've been to the Esplanade, the Old Market Hall... Some museums, churches, that sort of thing. And we're going to the Sibelius Park this weekend."

"Oh, that's great," Lumi exclaims, apparently relieved to find a sustainable topic of conversation. "It's a beautiful place – well, it looks better in the summer, so you'll have to go back then, but it's still beautiful now. The monument is such a piece of abstract art, it's really worth seeing."

"Yeah, I've heard," I say, even though the only knowledge I have of the monument is bits and pieces I've heard from Aksel. "It's made out of steel pipes, isn't it? That's pretty unique."

"Are you a fan of Sibelius's music?" Janne speaks up from Lumi's other side. I'm on Lumi's right, and he's on her left. But he's so tall that he doesn't even need to poke his head forward to look at me. I, on the other hand, do have to crane my neck to look around Lumi in order to make eye contact with him.

"I like his symphonies," I say. "Although I haven't heard many of his other works."

"You should go to some performances at the concert hall," Lumi suggests, "or at the opera house. His pieces are performed there quite often."

"I will," I promise. "Definitely. Sibelius is a really important figure in Finland, isn't he?"

"Oh, yeah," Lumi says. She smiles, "He's a huge part of Finnish culture. We're not well-known for a lot, but he is one of the people the world remembers us for."

I ponder that for a moment. I can almost understand this feeling. Germany... Well, people all over the world know all sorts of things about Germany. There are a lot of things and people that Germany is well-known for – some good, some bad, some stereotypes... But people from all over the world, at large, know a lot about Germans and Germany.

Maybe, if I were fully German, I would find the idea behind Lumi's words completely foreign to me. But I am half-Singaporean, too, and that part of me identifies with this. Singapore is a tiny country. To this day, there are still people who believe it is a part of China, or a part of Malaysia. And there isn't much that the world knows about Singapore, save for a few things and people, but these things and people – the positive aspects of them, at least – they are worth being proud of.

But I am not just Singaporean, even if I do look more the part. And if I talk too much about these things, these things that belong to Singapore, people will forget that I'm German, too. So even though I identify with the sentiments Lumi is voicing, I don't say anything.

"We have a Flag Day for him, you know," Janne adds. He seems to have suddenly found his tongue. "On the eighth of December. It was Sibelius's birthday. We have a Flag Day to commemorate him, and also to celebrate the 'Day of Finnish Music'."

My eyes widen at this new information. "Oh, that's cool." I hadn't known that. Finland has many Flag Days, I know – they are days on which the Finnish flag is flown on all public buildings. The fact that the flag is flown on Sibelius's birthday shows just how important he is to the Finns.

Pretty soon, we have to alight. Lumi presses the bell long before we reach the stop, something that I don't register until later. Yes, the doors open automatically, I note. It's these little things, these things you barely notice unless you're a foreigner, that you worry about the first time round. Back on the sidewalk, I shiver a little, having gotten used to the warmer temperature in the tram.

"It's about a minute's walk from here," Lumi tells me as Janne leads the way.

"Okay," I say, lagging slightly behind them.

When we step into the supermarket, it hits me. I immediately understand why Aksel was so adamant about getting his friends to accompany me here.

Every single thing is in Finnish.

Maybe it's because Aksel has been by my side for the entirety of the past week, or that we've been mostly going to the more tourist-friendly areas, but I've almost forgotten that I'm in Finland, where the official language is Finnish. And a supermarket is not a tourist attraction. There are no helpful signs in English along the aisles, or on the food packaging. Some things are obvious, even without understanding the words on the packaging, but when it comes to things like differentiating between almost-identical bottles of shampoo, conditioner, facial wash – or even just picking between full-fat milk and low-fat milk... There are some things that rely solely on your understanding of the words.

I am chagrined at how much Aksel thinks ahead in comparison to me.

Lumi comes to stand beside me, looking questioningly at me. "So," she says, "what do you want to buy?"

I should have made a shopping list, I think to myself. I've always done my groceries by walking down the aisles and grabbing anything that catches my eye. But I can't do that here. Not only do I have to watch my expenditure more than ever, I also don't recognise a lot of the brands lining the shelves.

I smile apologetically at Lumi and Janne. "Sorry, this may take a while."

It does take a while. It's almost two hours later before I have all that I want – well, not exactly, but close. Janne, as we've trudged down each aisle, has gotten inspired to do a little grocery shopping of his own, too, so he is right behind me as I head for the checkout area. Lumi, who isn't buying anything, told us she will be waiting at the exit and has vanished in that direction.

As we approach the checkout counters, I anxiously observe the actions of the other patrons. But they're doing nothing that I haven't seen before. It takes me a moment before I realise why.

This I know, I think in relief. Checking out your groceries the same here as in Germany. You lay your purchases on the belt, and wait in line. When it's your turn, you walk to the other end of the counter and wait for the cashier to finish scanning the items, so that you can bag them yourself. I can do this. I've been doing this all my life.

I am confident throughout the checkout process, only hesitating a little when the cashier speaks to me in Finnish. She sees my blank look quickly enough, however, and switches to English. I pack my groceries into the new grocery bag I've just purchased, finish paying, and head for the exit to join Lumi.

"All done?" she asks when she sees me walking towards her, bag on my shoulder.

"Yeah," I say, even though it must be obvious.

"Is there anything else you want to see around here?" Then she looks at my bag of groceries and grimaces, "But I guess you'll want to go straight home to put that down."

I smile at her. "Yeah. It's kind of heavy. Anyway, it's fine. You've spent long enough helping me already."

"It's no problem, really," she insists. "Aksel's girlfriend is our friend too, you know? If you ever need help..."

"Thanks," I say, feeling somewhat embarrassed. "That's really nice of you." I think, given time, Lumi and I could really become friends.

Janne comes to stand beside us now. He's ended up buying even more things than me, but he hoists his bag over his shoulder like it's nothing. Lumi flicks him a glance, "Done?"

He grunts an affirmation.

"Let's go, then," Lumi says.

We're all quiet on the walk to the tram stop, so quiet that I almost forget they're beside me, even though I am relying on them to lead the way to the stop.

"I wonder if there are any Asian markets around here," I murmur, talking to myself, before I remember I'm not alone. I turn to look at Lumi and Janne, to see if they've heard me, and they have.

"Sorry," Lumi says to me apologetically, even though I wasn't really asking her, "I have no idea."

"Aksel would know, I think," Janne says. "He likes Asian food. Cooks it sometimes."

My tongue almost falls out of my mouth. Aksel? I never knew. Then again, we have never talked much about Asian things, or the Asian part of my heritage. I know Aksel disapproves of how I shy away from it sometimes, but he doesn't bring it up much.

"Really? What does he cook?" I blurt out, before I can think the better of it.

Both Lumi and Janne stare at me in surprise. It must seem ludicrous to them, that I don't know this about my own boyfriend, but neither of them comment on it outwardly.

"Stir fry, I think," Janne says, listing off his fingers. "Fried rice... That sort of thing." He looks over to Lumi for assistance.

Chinese food? I can barely believe it. Aksel, my Finnish boyfriend, is perhaps even more in touch with the Asian half of my heritage than I am.

"He likes sushi, too," Lumi offers. "And curry... The spicy kind." She makes a face. "I think he's the only one out of all of us who can take spicy food."

"Oh," I say, hearing my voice come out sounding a little faint. "I never knew." I try to laugh. "I can't even cook those things."

I see Lumi and Janne exchange glances again. I purse up my lips, an old habit, and look down at my feet as we walk on.

Being here in Finland, I'm starting to discover a lot of things about Aksel that I never knew. Maybe that's the way it is. Maybe one's identity is so closely tied to their country, the place they're from, that you can only truly get to know a person when you're in said country, surrounded by the same things they are in their daily life.

And now that I am, I'm starting to realise that Aksel knows me all too well, but, in comparison, my knowledge of him is still sorely lacking.

***

"You never asked."

This is Aksel's response at night, when I bring up the topic of his culinary skills in Asian cuisine.

"It's not something one would think to ask," I point out.

"Well, it's not something one would think to announce, out of the blue, either," he replies. His expression is bland, but there is a glimmer in his eyes that tells me he is laughing at the way I've phrased that previous sentence.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Are you making fun of my English? I'll have you know, I always got a 1 for my English grade at school."

Aksel frowns. "I think your English is better than a 1."

I stare at him, wondering if he's joking. But he looks serious. "There's nothing better than a 1. That was my point."

He looks genuinely confused now. "But... 1 is only a pass."

"1 is the highest grade there is!" I correct him. "A pass is a 4."

"4 is an 'excellent' grade," he counters. "The only thing better is a 5."

We both stare at each other for a long minute. Then I start laughing, and I see a smile of realisation come over his face.

"I think we've found another cultural difference," he says.

"The Finnish 1 is only a pass?" I want to clarify.

"Yeah," he says. "0 is a fail."

"You have a 0? We don't have a 0."

"What's your failing grade, then?"

"5 and 6 are both failing grades," I say. "1 is the best grade you can get, and 6 is the worst."

"In Finland, in universities at least, 5 is the best and 0 is the worst."

"This is so strange," I say. I'm still chuckling over our initial confusion.

"Okay," he concedes. "Your English is a 1, then."

I laugh out loud at that. "You know, that could be both a compliment and an insult, depending on which perspective you see it from."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "You'll never know which one I mean, then, will you?"

With another laugh, I impulsively lunge forward and wrap my arms around him. He smooths a hand up and down over my upper arm as I snuggle into him. I lift my head slightly to look up at him, knowing this position makes my eyes look bigger than they normally do.

"Yeah, I guess I'll never know," I say.

He looks down at me for a moment, before the corners of his mouth twist upward. He leans down to drop a kiss on my forehead. "It's a compliment," he whispers. "Always a compliment."

But I don't need his reassurance. I already know every word out of his mouth reveals a measure of how much he feels for me, and that is compliment enough. I stand up on my tiptoes to catch his lips before he fully straightens up.

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear as we kiss, slowly but deeply. So deeply that I can feel the imprint of his tongue against mine. I feel his hand run along my jawline to come to a stop on my cheek. He does this a lot – cup my cheek while kissing me. Sometimes I wonder what experts on body language would say it means. Other times I don't care. It makes me feel safe and cherished, and that feeling is enough.

When we both pull away to catch our breaths, Aksel swipes a thumb gently across my lips. I press a light kiss to the pad of his thumb as it moves by. His other hand entangles itself in my hair. "That," he murmurs, leaning down so his forehead is against the top of my head, "was also a 1."

I crack a smile. "Passable in Finland, but outstanding in Germany?"

He lets out a laugh. Then he leans in quickly and kisses me hard. A kiss that leaves me gasping. "Outstanding in Finland, too."

"You're Finnish," I remind him. "1 is a pass."

"We'll follow the German way in this."

"If I'm not careful," I say, somewhat jokingly, "you'll turn out more German than I am."

Not many Europeans, if any, especially those with no German blood in their veins, like to hear that they're becoming more German. But Aksel doesn't get offended. He knows what I mean. "Impossible," he says.

"You're already more Asian than I am. I can't even cook Asian dishes." I try not to sound sulky as I say this, but I think a little of my petulance slips through.

"You are very German," Aksel says, indirectly agreeing with my second statement even as he counters my first. "You look more Asian, but I forget that, sometimes. You are so German."

I smile wryly. "You mean, I try very hard to be German." Wasn't that what he had said, when we first met in Edinburgh?

He stares at me, his gaze shifting away as he thinks to himself. Then he shakes his head slowly. "No. It's not the stereotypes you try to conform to that makes you German. It's those things that you do without thinking. Your habits show, very clearly, where you come from. You don't have to try to be German, because you already are."

I blink at him, nonplussed. I have no idea what he is talking about.

Aksel sees my bemusement. He sighs. "I don't know why you don't see yourself as a 'real German' - you were born there, lived there for most of your childhood, graduated from school there... You were ready to live your whole life there, until I came along. You have German blood in you, a German surname, and a German passport. What else do you need to convince yourself that you're a 'real German'?"

How did we get from Asian cuisine to this?

I try to pull away, but he holds fast. "Don't run, Emilie," he says softly. "Talk to me. I want to understand."

I give up on moving away, but I bury my face into his shirt so I won't have to look at him. "I don't know," my voice comes out sounding muffled against the fabric. "How can I explain to you something even I don't understand? It's just a feeling. I feel like I'm different, no matter what I say or do. I just don't belong."

"Doesn't being a part of two cultures," he says, "mean that you belong in more places? There are more things that are yours, more cultures you belong to."

"No, that's not true." My lips are clumsy. It's hard to articulate this mess of feelings within me. "That's not the way it works. People always think I get the best of both worlds. But I don't. I'm always having to choose between the two of them, but no matter which I choose, I am still not fully a part of that culture. I'm still not enough."

"Why do you have to be one or the other? Why can't you be both at the same time? You are both."

"Because..." How do I explain this to someone who has never needed to struggle between two entirely opposing identities? How do I explain this to someone who has known, from birth, exactly where his place in the world is? "People like to categorise things, and other people. You either fit into this box, or you fit into another one. Even when you're both, people still want to try to fit you in a box that they understand. Are you more Asian or more European? It's human nature. And when they see me, they slot me into that 'Asian' box. They don't see the European part of me."

"But why," and he is really confused when he asks this, "why do you let other people have such great power over you? Who cares what they think, what box they try to fit you in? How does that matter, as long as you know who you are, yourself?"

He is so self-assured. So confident about who he is. This comes with growing up as part of the majority, I think. As fully European. As someone whose inner self matches his outer appearance. It's different for him. He will never experience the sinking feeling that is twin brother to the knowledge that someone you've just met is doubting your identity. Doubting your right to be here.

"But I don't know who I am myself," I whisper, looking down, away from his probing gaze. "That's the whole point. I don't know who I am, and I'm still trying to find out."

Aksel sighs. He wraps his arms more securely around me, kissing me lightly on the temple. "Okay," he says. "It's something you have to figure out on your own. I get that. I just wish you wouldn't downplay your connections to one culture to fit in better with another. You're both. You should be proud of them both."

I bite my lip. I don't try to deny it. It's only obvious how much I try to be more German, just so people wouldn't see me as only Asian. "If I looked more European, I would probably be fighting to be recognised as Asian, too," I say honestly. "Maybe that just shows a chronic inability to be happy with who I am."

"I think," he says, "that means that, in your own way, you're proud to be both."

I don't refute him, but I'm sure he is wrong.

Of course, I would like to think of myself as being proud of both my cultures, but the truth is... I'm not sure I know what it is to be proud of who I am. What is there to be proud of, anyway? I'm nothing special. And both my cultures – I call them mine, but neither one really belongs to me. I am stuck in limbo, in between. On the outside, looking in.

How do I feel proud of something I am not even a real part of?