Timothy’s upbringing. My first son (Timothy) was born in Tokyo in 1989. In recognition of his mixedness I decided to give him an English first name, Timothy (Tim), (as we were intending to live in England) which could be converted into a Japanese name, Chimori, a Japanese middle name, Heisei81, and family name, Matsoka. In England he was Tim Matsoka and in Japan he was Matsoka Chimori82. Due to Timothy’s mixedness I soon became aware that we were situated within a markedly racialised environment in both Tokyo and London. I became acutely aware (as did Kamada, 2010) that my son was Anglo-Japanese, as opposed to being White British like me or ‘pure’ Japanese like his father. His birth was registered in both Japan and England so that he could acquire dual nationality. However, I realised that he would be required to choose either Japanese or British nationality before the age of 22 as dual nationality is not permitted by the Japanese government (Ministry of Justice, 1998 – 2006). This legislation counters the trope of mixedness in Britain as in Japan it is a legal requirement to relinquish one part of the ancestry of a person of mixed ethnicities. When in Tokyo, I noticed that, on the one hand, Timothy was positively received whilst, on the other hand, what I considered to be racialised vocabulary was used when referring to him. Often when we went outside teenage girls would gather around him, take a sharp intake of breath and squeal ‘kawai’ (cute) 83 in loud high-pitched, highly-feminised voices. He was recognised as being racially different albeit in a positive sense. However, in vernacular speech he was referred to as hāfu which I considered to be a derogatory term due to its similarity to the English words ‘half- breed’ or ‘half-caste’.
