English | Sri Lankan

My parents met in London in their 30s and have lived between London and Surrey, I was born in Cambridge and then we moved to London. 
Growing up mixed race was grey and kind of slumbering at the same time, my parents sheltered me from the real world as a child so racism wasn't an issue. 
People tend to assume that I'm from China or Malaysia, or I am Japanese. I absolutely don't mind when it's out of curiosity or when people ask very curiously and they're intrigued. But then I’ve had unwarranted aggression basically racism from some people. They would be saying ‘ching chong’ or ‘you want ‘sweet and sour’ with that, it makes me feel like shit.
I’ve never even been to places like China or Japan or Malaysia. You know I've not even been out of this country for like more than a month. All I've ever known is England and London. It's a scary feeling to have to feel that aggression from other people even when you haven't done anything wrong, coming from people that you don't know. It's a strange and disappointing feeling. 
I mean it's a very strange feeling, I'm not as connected to my dad's side compared to my mum’s side we've always kind of been in the UK. It's really odd for someone to pinpoint where you're from, especially when you don't know yourself. I've always known myself as English and I identify myself more as a Londoner. 
To be mixed race when you haven't had the opportunity to go and feel rooted in those countries is for myself being an anchor. As well as English/ German I've never really been there long enough to kind of feel like I belong to one culture. So for me, being mixed race has been kind of a weird feeling like almost being very much in the middle where I haven't landed my feet in either direction. 
It's feeling like you’re kind of on a boat and you’re like in the middle of the ocean but not in a terrible way. I mean sometimes it can feel really quite isolating and you know you feel like you can't connect with people as much as you want to