Part 1

To an observer many things were complicated for Dublin Nakamura, starting with his name. The commonplace use of family names in school by teachers and peers was a godsend for Dublin, as Nakamura was much easier to handle for your average Tokyoite than his given name. With what sounds the Japanese language allowed for, Dublin had to be said, and written in Katakana script, as da-bu-ri-n. Dublin’s assurances helped, but it was also often required of him to explain that it was indeed just like the city in a-i-ru-ra-n-do. Sometimes it even helped when he explained that his birthday was March 17th, the same day his mother was given to expect him by the very thorough prenatal office she had once frequently visited. This flex of fate quashed any second doubts she might have had regarding naming her son after her hometown. Nevertheless, the pronunciation of Dublin’s name was rarely correct and was far from how Dublin had learned to say it. Being born and raised on the Northside of Dublin, his mother took a totally different approach to vowels. An approach that Dublin could only just barely remember, since it only lasted until he was five.

After the passing of Mary Nakamura, nee Kiernan, Dublin’s aunt Kaoru would help out when she was able. She always ensured there was food in the house. Ultimately though, Dublin lived with his father and was often alone.

Dublin was always safe enough on his own in Tokyo, where even in an urban area encompassing more than 20 million people it was normal for schoolchildren to ride the trains and walk the streets by themselves. It was a good thing too, as it was standard fare that Dublin’s father Toru worked sixty hours a week and had an office a 40-minute train ride from their rented home in Koenji. Dublin would happily spend his late afternoons at school, playing with whomever was around and joining the activities of any after school club that would have him before heading home. Dublin never really fit into one group. The other students at his school would find a club or a hobby and have a set group of friends as a result. Dublin being half-Japanese stood out to them. He thought he looked the same, just his hair a touch lighter. They could always tell though. His English was better than his classmates, but he routinely disappointed them when he couldn’t help them with a specific grammar point in their homework or didn’t know a word when they asked him what it meant. He would catch whispers and sighs of “hafu...wakanai” as he would depart from one group or another, always considering how it was odd to be criticized by someone for knowing more than them, yet not enough for their satisfaction. Once home, Dublin would let himself in the door and make himself a snack.

This routine lasted for many years, with the primary change being that Dublin would hang about the streets and arcades of Koenji after long days at high school. Sometimes his snack upon getting home would consist of less healthy options now that he was a little older. Even though he was only 17, from time to time he would find himself able to purchase a beer and would sit on the floor and drink it calmly before rinsing out the can and leaving it with the other recycling in the cupboard beneath the sink. His father never said a word about the beer cans, and Dublin figured this would stay the same as long as the number was never more than a can per day.

Near the end of Dublin’s final year of high school he returned home and found his aunt Kaoru sitting on the front step, despite the fact she had a key. Dublin’s father had passed away that afternoon. He had met his fate in front of a train, though in an abnormal way. Onlookers confirmed to the police that he had grabbed his chest and staggered forwards from his place in line waiting, and in a swirl of inopportune timing had collapsed forward onto the track just as the train was approaching the platform. It had all happened so quickly that no one had a chance to grab the victim of a presumed heart attack before his body was obliterated on the rails of the JR East Chuo Line. In what may be more shocking to most than it was to Dublin, his aunt immediately left after delivering the news. He sat alone and drank the one beer he had managed to buy, then went to sleep, without saying a word to anyone. 

Dublin awoke the next day without any clue what would come next. He wasn’t really in shock, despite admitting to himself that the news certainly was of a shocking nature. He felt like he knew all along this is how it would be at some point. He was used to being alone. Dublin put on his uniform and headed to school. He got to his normal classroom and it looked just the same as it had all year. He began revising for his exams, as did his classmates who entered the room. Soon-to-graduate students were expected to come in and study all day, though there were no formal classes on the timetable. Around two hours into Dublin’s careful perusal of his chemistry textbook, the school’s vice principal showed up at the door, an unusual occurrence, and asked Dublin to follow him downstairs.

A man sat waiting for Dublin and the vice principal. The first thing he asked Dublin was if he was more comfortable speaking to him in English or Japanese. The man’s impeccable attire made Dublin feel he was in the presence of a very important person. Dublin was never confident in his English in situations like this. If anything involved legal terminology or strayed from what Dublin was used to, he’d be lost.Disappointing classmates and other kids was one thing, he didn’t want to disappoint such a formal gentleman. The man began in a calm manner that took Dublin back to the conversations he’d had with nurses and doctors as a five-year-old.

“Dublin, I’m a lawyer. I’ve actually never been to Ireland,” he chuckled as he said Ireland. “But, somehow I’ve ended up working primarily on complicated situations involving corporate law where business between Japan and Ireland is concerned. A friend of mine, another lawyer, received the case of your inheritance just a few hours ago.” Dublin was following along, though the word inheritance was just out of his grasp. “He thought I’d be the right person to deal with it. I told him I was quite happy to help a young man in a very unique situation.” A situation he began to lay out for Dublin.

Jumping between legal terms in English and Japanese clarifications the man told Dublin that his father had been designated the inheritor of his deceased wife’s estate. Now, that estate was to be Dublin’s. Dublin did not think any of this remarkable. Though he didn’t know a great deal about the Irish side of his family, he knew his mother did not come from money and was sure whatever money he stood to receive was surely more a product of his father’s long hours at work in the twelve years since she died. What Dublin didn’t know, is that he also stood to inherit property. In a day that would have floored many people multiple times over, this was the first surprise for Dublin. Dublin looked at his hands and couldn’t feel his fingers out in front of him.

“I won a house?” he asked.

“No Dublin. You own a house.”

At first, Dublin was confused, as his current home was rented. He also knew his father’s family had sold their property years earlier and divvied up the relatively small sum. Soon though, he was presented with the faxed copy of a deed to a house. The address was not in Tokyo. It wasn’t in Japan at all. It was on a road Dublin faintly remembered the name of from many years before. It was in the city for which he was named.

Part 2

The air in the airport was still and the surroundings felt sparse to Dublin. Compared to most train stations in Tokyo the whole airport was considerably sedate. There were shops, advertisements, and people hocking credit cards or tours, but not nearly to the level of Narita, the last airport he’d been in. Dublin put in the same amount of effort and focus reading a digitized scrolling sign explaining how to enable Eir Mobile roaming and an advertisement for the Dublin Bus system as he did poring over his customs and immigration landing card. With the jetlag and the new surroundings, Dublin was mistaken for a moment that his English was more limited than he thought thanks to words like Baile Átha Cliath and Eitiltí Isteach posted around the terminal. When his utilitarian Samsonsite slid out on the baggage carousel he rushed to grab it, squeezing his hand around the handle as tightly as he could and heaving it off the moving belt. He didn’t want to burden anyone by having them come over and offer him help. He wanted to look like he knew what he was doing, even if he wasn’t certain he did. When he got to the doors on the way out, the immigration officer behind his elevated desk in his universally official-looking peaked cap looked at Dublin’s Irish passport and said,

“Where have you been?”

“Japan…” Dublin said, “my whole life.” The officer looked down at the passport again before looking up at Dublin.
“Jay-sus. Dat’s a long time to be on holiday!” With that he stamped the passport and while handing it back offered, “Welcome home!” with a smile and a tilt of his head.

Outside the airport, Dublin handed his luggage to a taxi driver and stood next to his cab for a few moments until he realized the doors were not controlled by the driver like they were in Tokyo. He opened the door and slid in next to the driver. Questions began flying like darts and Dublin answered each based more on context than any ability to discern what or even how many words were in each of the driver’s sentences. The only question Dublin couldn’t answer was the final one posed, “What are you doing in Dublin?” The question sat like still air between the two men until the driver, satisfied enough with Dublin’s previous answers, grabbed the stick shift and set them in motion.

Dublin had finished his exams. High school was complete and he had never really made plans for any further schooling after it. Teachers and counselors at school had handed him pamphlets and talked to him about universities and careers all through Grade 10 and 11, but thanks to his total disinterest, no parental contact, and lack of attachment to anyone in his peer group, that all stopped during his final year at the school. With the Japanese school year ending in March and free of anything in the way of plans, Dublin was able to use April and May to pack up and move out of the apartment he now occupied alone. His days were filled with the small annoyances of packing, organizing travel, terminating contracts, and banking. A sudden surge of adulthood. He dealt with Japanese matters only, clearing his head and life of one after another until heading to Dublin with no set return date. The largest chunk of Dublin’s time was spent dealing with the okoden money given to his family on account of his father’s death. He had to keep track of how much each person or family sent in order to send them a gift in return that matched with what they had given. Dublin remembered wondering how his father could spend so much time poring over ornate envelopes, updating a list of amounts, and selecting gifts to send back in return after his mother had died. Dublin felt like he saw the memories through water, watching his younger life unfold through aquarium glass. As she had done so many times in his life, his aunt Kaoru had shown him a system to help from getting confused. Helping and guiding him just enough before leaving him to do it for himself. The pernicious confusion and uncertainty of his mother’s death was not present, only the concentration and attention to detail required to wrap things up.

Dublin’s lawyer—being able to refer to someone as “his lawyer” was a concept he still couldn’t believe—had managed to get him a room in the student accommodation at Trinity College. He had turned 18, so he was the usual age to move in, but the students had moved out in the last week of May, so Dublin stayed in a large building on his own. The particular connection to the university as part of the larger Japan-Ireland network was a professor of Japanese history. A man born and raised in Tipperary who had been to Japan once, for a three-day conference followed by a two-day, one-night sightseeing trip to Kyoto. Dublin visited him in his office the day he got there. The man proudly presented him with a pin bearing the flags of Ireland and Japan. Dublin thanked him and stared at the Japanese miscellania around the office before settling his eyes on the pin. Dublin found it easier to look down at the pin on his own lapel than stare any longer into the eyes of Tokugawa Ieyasu on the wall. Dublin wondered what made this man so interested in Japan when even he, being born in Japan to one Japanese parent, was treated as less than Japanese.

“Right son, a Hinomaru and Tri-Colour,” the professor said in reference to the pin, as if answering a question that was the cause of Dublin continually staring down at it. The Irishman knew more about Japanese history than Dublin ever would, but had no curiosity about modern Tokyo. Dublin had nothing but curiosity about modern Dublin, but couldn’t think of a single question to ask. He was used to people telling him things. Teachers offering things he should know. Faced with asking questions and guiding a conversation to uncover new facts, all he could do was roll his wrists and purse his lips.

Dublin wandered around St. Stephen’s Green, stared at the Shelbourne Hotel, took a picture of the old bridge you walked across and the new bridge shaped like a harp, paid eight Euros for a pint of Guinness in Temple Bar, and generally acted like a well-to-do tourist of the city for three days. On the fourth day, Dublin left the city centre for the first time. He was going to meet his mother’s family. While it wasn’t that far to Trinity College, Dublin noted a severe shift as he crossed the Royal Canal riding Bus 123 to Ballybough. Somehow the grey sky seemed starker, like a contrast slider had been shifted. People stared into the bus as though inspecting the riders. There were children dotted along the sidewalks of the main road. They didn’t remind Dublin of the children in Tokyo who commuted from school, or tutoring, or club practice under the watchful eye of the community. These children appeared almost battle-hardened. They frowned with scorn at nothing. Women loitered around corners, smoking, the bottom of their pants browned from the street. Their arms folded around themselves. Dublin checked the map on his phone one last time before burying it deep in his pocket and got off the bus.

Scampering around a corner and across a hodgepodge of pavement and stones, Dublin found the right street, then the right number. The happy preoccupation of finding his destination gave way to the increased gravity of dread. The feeling of having to face strangers blended with the feeling of trying to impress and connect with family. He filled his chest with crisp spring air until it couldn’t expand any more and approached the door. After ringing the doorbell he heard shuffling and shouting right up until the door swung open. Dublin felt a vacuum of uncertainty and was pulled into the house. He was sat in a chair in the middle of an argument about who would make tea as people flitted in and out of the kitchen around him. Dublin felt as though he’d barely taken more than a step inside the house before he was in the kitchen. He was anxious about having his shoes on inside a house, even as he stared down at a shifting and sliding array of Nike, Adidas, and Puma trainers. At first, Dublin figured he was being treated to a standard level of hospitality. Perhaps the Keoghs were the type of family that always squabbled over who would make the tea and never let a plate of biscuits go completely empty.

“This one,” Andy Keogh, Dublin’s cousin, said, reaching and grabbing his brother Richie Keogh , “absolute gas story...when he was younger—”

“Ah, go on!” Richie snapped at Andy, pulling away his arm. Dublin could tell he didn’t actually want Andy to continue.

“He was thirsty when he was lad, so he went to the fridge to grab a drink. Sees yer mug on the door there.” Dublin’s mother had a picture taken of Dublin every year when he was young and had always sent one to the Keogh’s. “He shouts to our ma, ‘we can sponsor a needy oriental but we can’t afford real bleedin’ Club Orange.’” Dublin gathered from the delivery that Richie’s ignorance of his family’s international nature and disdain for off-brand supermarket beverages was meant to be amusing.

“Not those ya feckin’ eejit! The good biscuits.” Andy said as Roy Keogh arrived with a plate. Roy quickly turned back to the kitchen and returned with red package.

“Only the best. Jacob’s Mikados and...Bewley’s of course,” Andy, stated proudly. Dublin wasn’t familiar with the brands, but could tell Andy wanted him to be impressed.

“Haveta take care-a visitors while they’re here. Give ya the best of Dublin before yer off back.”

Off? The thought of Dublin staying and becoming a part of their lives seemed far-fetched to them. They seemed very happy he was there, in their house, but disinterested in him.

Having drank the Bewley’s tea. Having enjoyed the fluffy Jacob’s biscuits, each one like two caterpillars separated by a streak of blood. Having read the packaging of each. Dublin asked, “So what does everyone do?”

“Ah, dis and dat. Ya know?” Andy answered. Dublin didn’t know. He didn’t know their jobs, their hobbies, their relationship statuses. He wanted to know. Before he could think of how to follow up, Richie Keogh said “Pub?” and pointed with his finger at the middle of the table.

“Idea.” Andy responded, drawing out the final syllable. Dublin didn’t have any desire to leave the Keogh home yet, but soon enough his cousins were standing up and they were all out the door and into a Ballybough pub.

The pub was a slightly downtrodden version of the ones Dublin had seen around where he was staying. Soggy towels. Moist cardboard coasters. Worn-away carpet in the shape of footprints around the bar. Dublin noticed everything looked a little bit older and dirtier, including the patrons. The price of Guinness was half of what he had paid for it “in town” as his family kept referring to it. Soon after arriving, stares gathered like wolves at a carcass as people realized it wasn’t just the usual Keogh boys in for a pint. Dublin tried to keep his head down at the bar, smelling the sour pong of years of spilled beer exposed to the air.

“Round of Guinness” became a familiar refrain. Dublin’s cousins would have another black and white pint waiting by the time their glasses were down to a remaining third. Dublin was doing his best to keep up. The bottles behind the bar developed a filmy glow as the night wore on. Dublin’s cousins bought the pints, presenting cash as each round was ordered. They introduced Dublin to locals, who when given the chance to learn more about Dublin than they could by simply staring at him were reluctant to say anything and appeared to assume he spoke no English. These people had not a shred of Dublin’s childhood classmates’ ability to look at him and immediately see he was half-white.

Moments of contentment wafted over Dublin from time to time. He liked the creased newspapers laid out on the bar. He liked that the TV was on but no one was looking at it. He was seldom lost in the conversation but often found himself filling in the meanings of slang remarks on his own, trusting cues and context.

Things turned when Dublin overhead Andy say to Roy Keogh, the largest and so far quietest of Dublin’s Irish brethren, “What’s a few quid now if we get a fuckin’ gaff outta it?”Andy seemed excited, but Roy walked away from him and positioned himself between Dublin and the only door out of the pub. He ordered himself a Jamesons, outside of the round of pints they’d been ordering. He threw his arm around Dublin’s shoulders and repeatedly muttered unintelligible barrages punctuated by the terms “Japanese hole” and “prozzies”. Dublin found his vision hastily refocusing and immediately had more feeling in his extremities. Andy Keogh slipped under his brother’s arm leaving it gesturing towards the back of the pub, freeing Dublin and leaving Roy Keogh propped against the bar like a drunken version of the Sistine Chapel’s Adam.

“Listen,” said Andy, now sitting on the booth side of a small table across from Dublin, “it’s been grand getting to know you. Absolute gas. Pity you can’t stay longer.” Dublin was confused. He had never said how long he intended to stay. He had made no mention of returning to Japan to anyone in Ireland.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, you know. I know you’ll be here for a bit. But, you know...you’ll get the house sold. Then, what’re you to do? I’m sure there’ll be some papers to sign and bank shite to sort out. Then you’ll take yer money back to the rising sun. But listen. It’ll really help the family out. Ya know. Getting the house sold. Real estate prices are high as a bleedin’ kite.”

Dublin, feeling drained, realized what he had heard only in snippets. The Keogh family were interested in his gaff. There had been two conversations taking place. One he was a part of and one he was the subject of. He noticed Andy’s brothers peeking over shoulders from the bar with varying levels of discretion to see how things were going. Dublin stood up and walked out. Shortly after, people in the neighbourhood could hear Andy calling his name, first at what they described as a Chinese man, and then into the empty street.

Part 3

Dublin now lived in the house he’d inherited. It was his home. It stood in a row, connected to every other house on the block. He loved the smell of the earth he got off the hedge that brushed up against his gate every time he left home or came home. He even liked how it sprayed some water as the gate ran against it, iron against the green. Across the street was a shop that had long ago closed. The windows were boarded up, but the apartment above it was still occupied. Dublin liked how each time he left home he’d hear new words. The ways to say things in Ireland seemed to Dublin to be as endless as the rain. In Tokyo, he knew exactly what would come out of each shop worker's mouth when he entered. When he approached the cash register. When he left. In Dublin, he would go into the Spar and the man behind the counter would say a different thing to each person that walked in.

The times Dublin found himself thinking of Tokyo most were when he realized how little he thought about the past. The distance he had always felt from his father made it hard to imagine what his father would think of him now. He felt somewhat delighted that his father might be displeased by his lack of formality. Might suck in his breath at the sight of him heading to work dressed in corduroys and not a dark suit.

Dublin loved his community. Dublin loved Dublin. Dublin’s life felt full. Full of characters, and unexpected exchanges, and things he could choose to fill his time. Dublin had found a job in town, thanks to the professor he had met when he first arrived in the city. He worked in the Trinity College International Student Centre. He mostly did very simple work. He’d help carry boxes around the university. He helped set up for events held by the school. Every once in a while, he’d be called over to the Book of Kells exhibit area to help talk to some Japanese tourists. On Friday afternoons, he would head to the pub with other employees, people with a variety of roles around the school. At these casual events Dublin picked up new linguistic gifts. His favourite was “six of one, half a dozen of the other,” which he promised himself to make use of as soon as possible. Dublin would “get pints in,” before four o’clock even rolled around, far earlier than his father ever left work, and even than he ever got home from school in Japan. Life was simple. Life was good.

There were only two things in his new life that Dublin could really do without. The first was the constant reassurance he had to provide every time he introduced himself to a new person. When he’d say “I’m Dublin,” he’d hear “Is that so?”, “Are you sure ‘bout that?”, and “and I’m in it!” The most irritating to Dublin, always said with a friendly upward intonation, was “You’re not!” He didn’t know what to say when someone told him directly he was not who he said he was. That he was not in fact Dublin, even though he understood it was just a way to express incredulity. The second thing Dublin was truly unhappy about was the group of teenagers he passed every morning on his way to work. Dublin had just a short walk get to the 123 bus. He would walk out his gate, go to the end of his street, turn right, cross a small bridge then cut through the lot of a petrol station. Every day, near the bridge or the petrol station, a group of teenage boys sat on the pavement, leaned against walls, and used their bicycles as forms of mobile furniture. The sides of their head were always freshly-shaven and the unifying characteristics of their group seemed to be that they all thought Adidas track pants were the only style of clothing worthy of daily use and that Lucozade should always be on hand. Every time Dublin approached, he desperately hoped he wouldn’t be seen. He had tried going around back of the petrol station. He’d tried quickening his pace. But, he sensed the abuse he received was worse whenever he tried to avoid it. One teenager, a perpetual scowler who always wore a fading red Manchester United shirt, would yell “Da Chaii-neez arr comin’!” This reminded Dublin of going to school in Japan. Of being told he wasn’t Japanese. He was half. That was the term used, hafu. Less than whole. He wasn’t half-Japanese, half-Irish. He was just half. In Ireland, the label was often even less accurate. He was just “Chinese”. Dublin’s legs tensed just short of a cramp when he walked past the boys. It was hard to maintain his normal gait. He’d give a sort of half-bow or a wave and carry on. Escalation to violence felt like a distinct possibility.

On the last Friday of Dublin’s first term working at Trinity, Dublin went out on the town with his colleagues. The end of term meant that everyone took the Friday pints a bit more earnestly. Dublin sat and stood and wobbled in pubs for over five hours. He couldn’t count the drinks he’d had anymore; his face was flushed. At some point he, or someone else, had decided he should go home. The bright lights and the tilting turns of the bus made him feel both alert and sick. As he lurched off of the bus, Dublin could hear the familiar refrain accompanied by laughter.

“Da Chaii-neez arr comin’!”

At first Dublin ignored it as usual. Then, tired of not being Japanese in Japan and not being Irish in Ireland. Tired of the memory of not always being able to help classmates with their English homework. Tired of people thinking all of East Asia was made up entirely of Chinese people. Tired of being told what he was and what it meant. He stopped. The shouting stopped too. He stood still for a moment, then turned around and deliberately walked right up to his harasser. Dublin looked him right in the eye and shouted “I’m six of Irish and half a dozen of the Japanese! OK?”

Dublin then walked away, not in the direction of his house, but to a pub he hadn’t been to in a while. He walked briskly now. He could feel the blood flowing through him. He went through the door and smelled the pong of spilled beer. He ordered a Guinness at the bar. The barman poured the first part of the pint and left it to sit. Once Dublin had his pint firmly in hand he felt an arm reach around his shoulders. The limb was hot. It pulled him tight. It was Roy Keogh’s and he said to no one in particular, “This is my cousin.”