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Assign "Elastic IP" Fixed Public IP to your Amazon EC2

Rick Cogley — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:35:00 +0000

Amazon AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud, or basically, paravirtual servers you can rent from Amazon) initially assigns a non-fixed public IP address to your server instance. This means when you reboot your instance, the public hostname and public IP address will change. This is fine when you are experimenting, but not fine for a production server, and can be the source of not a little surprise, when you restart and the server "disappears".

This behavior is by design, and makes sense, because IPv4 IP addresses are relatively scarce and a large provider like Amazon would need to conserve on them where possible. But if you need a fixed IP, Amazon allows you to assign what they call an "elastic IP" address. The beauty of this design, is that the elastic IP is associated with your account, and not locked to a single instance. You can re-allocate it from server to server.

So, say you have a production server in the Tokyo AWS region, and a backup server with the same configuration but that is idling in the US East AWS region. If for whatever reason, the Tokyo EC2 region or your server there has an outage, you theoretically could just visit the AWS EC2 console, and re-assign that elastic IP from the Tokyo server to the other server, reboot and you're on your way. Issues of DNS changes and propagation are therefore not a factor, and you have pretty quick failover.

The screenshot shows what the interface for allocating these looks like.

Apple OS X "Mountain Lion" Upgrade

Rick Cogley — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:24:00 +0000

There is not much over-the-top wow about the OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" upgrade, and it seems like the small upgrade fee goes to more subtle changes this time around. The upgrade itself was uneventful, but took a while due to database changes in Mail and Calendar, which needed to convert.

As for functionality after the upgrade, here are a few things I found to be worth remembering -

More apps that work with Retina displays. Personally, I am all for better displays, and am pleased with the Retina displays on both my MacBook Pro and iPad. There are some apps, such as Acrobat X which render fonts horribly on a Retina display, but Preview still works for displaying PDFs. I am hopeful for Acrobat XI.
Safari finally has a combined address and search bar, like Chrome, and also lets you pinch-in to make the open tabs act like on iOS.
Really solid integration between the OS and social networking services Twitter and Facebook. Check out the nice integration in Address Book. You can also share to Flickr from a Quick Look popup. Try going to System Preferences, Mail/Contacts/Calendars, add your Twitter account, and click "Update Contacts." It is quite convenient to be able to grab Twitter handles and Facebook profile photos.
You can rename files from some apps now. Notice the drop down menu to the right of the file name, in say, Preview.
There are Sharing actions you can take from Quick Look. Press space with a file selected in Finder, then use the sharing icon. Also, find the sharing icon in other apps, such as Preview, Notes, Textedit, Safari as well. You can share entire web pages via email, in Safari now.
Double tap/click in the Sort By bar at the top of Mail's message list, to jump to the first message. Much easier than grabbing those fiddly scroll bars, and is something I have wanted for a long time.
Speaking of Scroll Bars, they now grow under your mouse to let you grab them. 50% less fiddly, compared to previous iterations.
Gatekeeper is a good change and requirement, I think. Apple have made it a little more difficult to run apps from unknown sources. See System Preferences, Security and Privacy.
Dictation is pretty cool, if you turn it on (System Preferences, Dictation) but note that it sends data to Apple's servers, and requires an Internet connection.
You can search directly from Launch Pad, but I still just use the Spotlight icon and type the name of the app, to search for it.
Calendar (previously iCal) seems to work better with Google Calendar. I gave up on iCal in Lion, and switched to BusyCal, but I might give Calendar a try once again.
Message center is irritating, to me - I am not a fan. I like Growl better, and I had to mess around with Calendar delegates, otherwise I was getting popup reminders for all the staff in my company. Maybe it will grow on me. I will give it a chance.

Hope you find something you can use. Enjoy!

LinkedIn Listing eSolia and Other Tokyo Companies Incorrectly

Rick Cogley — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:08:00 +0000

I pointed this out to LinkedIn 10 days ago, but am getting nowhere with support who seems to think I will just let it drop hearing their platitudes, so I will post about the problem here in the hope that another company with a similar problem will join me in requesting a fix.

Linked-In has re-located us outside Tokyo...

The problem is, when I enter search phrases that bring my company eSolia up in search results, we and other like companies are listed as being "outside the 23 wards of Tokyo." You can see it in the screenshot attached below. This is the exact opposite of the reality - we are inside the 23-wards, and to me, it just seems like a programmer got their logic switched up.

LinkedIn support informs me as follows -

I sent your message to our research and development team for review and consideration in future developments.
Even though we’re not able to respond individually to numerous recommendations we receive, we’d like to invite you to check out the LinkedIn Blog http://blog.linkedin.com for the latest notifications on site improvements. It’s our way of keeping you and our other members informed on all the exciting work we’re doing behind the scenes.
We appreciate the feedback and believe that together we can create great products for everyone!

Seriously?! Well, gee, I am so happy that maybe someday, you will get your act together and maybe deem it worthy to fix your bug.

Please LinkedIn, this seems like a simple logic error that is happening to multiple companies in various places inside the 23 wards of Tokyo. We hope for a fix sooner rather than later, or I will have to go to my landlord and request a rent reduction, as my company has been relocated outside the 23 wards of Tokyo.

Anyone else having search listing problems with LinkedIn? Log in and contact their support via this page - http://help.linkedin.com/app/home.

OS X Lion 802.1q Tagged VLAN Setup

Rick Cogley — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Apple obviously works hard to make things as easy as possible for users, but sometimes in their zeal for simplicity, technical things that should be represented simply in the GUI, are actually made more difficult and opaque.

One such example is setting up 802.1q VLANs in OS X Lion 10.7. In System Preferences, Network, you can use the gear icon at the bottom of the interface list, to Manage Virtual Interfaces, but you can only link a vlan you create there (or in the CLI) to the main Ethernet interface, and not to any secondary interface you create. However, it is indeed possible to create the vlan on the main interface, then give it the IP address you require.

How to Setup an 802.1q Tagged VLAN in OS X 10.7, with a Manual IP Address

The reason I needed to have a tagged VLAN, is my switches' management interface is on a tagged VLAN. We are using an untagged VLAN as the general VLAN in our network, because you never know what systems will not support 802.1q tagging, and, you can have only one untagged VLAN in a switch infrastructure. (That makes sense if you think about it. How could you have two untagged VLANs, when the point is separation.) We wanted the security of a separate VLAN, for infrastructure management functions.

So my goal was -

to have a single NIC working for all the networks I need.
to be able to connect to our standard untagged internal VLAN where we have servers and printers, on 10.81.1.0.
to be able to connect to our tagged management VLAN which is the only way to manage our switches, on 10.81.254.0.

Connecting to the standard untagged internal VLAN is easy. It is the "Ethernet" interface listed in System Preferences Network, and connects via DHCP. The steps to make the third bullet point work, were as follows -

First, open System Preferences, Network, then use the gear icon at the bottom of the list of interfaces, to see a submenu, that has "Manage Virtual Interfaces".

Click on "Manage Virtual Interfaces" and use the plus button to add the VLAN interface, entering a name, and the correct VLAN tag number. In this example, it is 254. At least on my MacBook Pro, I was able to select only the one physical NIC - Ethernet - to bind the VLAN to.

After you click Done, you will see the VLAN interface listed in the main list of interfaces. You then select this, and change DHCP to Manual configuration, and set it up as a normal Network interface. The difference is, this interface has the 802.1q tag on all its packets.

Once this is set up, you will be able to communicate with other devices, like switches, servers, or storage, that have the same VLAN tag.

I hope this information helps someone. Enjoy!

Efficient Gmail with OS X Mail.app

Rick Cogley — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:37:00 +0000

Greetings and Happy New Year. I am using Mail.app on OS X Lion, to retrieve mail in my Google Apps for Business Gmail account, and I wanted to blog about my setup, because I think it is relatively efficient and might help others. My goals are:

To keep my inbox small, to allow Mail.app to perform well. This goes for any mailer, really. The larger the mail store, the slower it will get.
To keep minimize network traffic and keep round trip copying up and down to Gmail, to a minimum.
To be able to have a backup of mail just in case, outside the mail client.

My Formula for Mail.app Gmail Efficiency

Here is what I am doing:

To minimize network traffic, in GMail settings, I uncheck the "Show in IMAP" setting for the All Mail label, so that it does not copy down to Mail.app. If a message comes into Gmail, and this is turned on, it will download twice - to the Inbox folder and to the All Mail folder. Gmail does not store in folders, but rather works with labels, so there is some strangeness in interaction with typical IMAP clients as a result.

To keep the size of the local Inbox small, I am Archiving mail. Archiving mail in Gmail means to remove its Inbox label. It is important to note that when you Archive mail in Gmail, it just makes it disappear from the Inbox, but it is still present in All Mail.

To Archive inside the Gmail web GUI, select or open the mail, then -

… press "e" on the keyboard (see other keyboard shortcuts for Gmail). Or,
… click the Archive button on the toolbar (looks like a box with a downward-facing arrow).

There is an Archive button in Mail.app, and what this does is to move the selected mail into an Archive IMAP folder, which will be synced up to Gmail. To Archive mail using Mail.app, select or open the mail in Mail.app, then -

… press Ctrl-⌘-A to Archive it.
Confirm the email is present in the local "Archive" IMAP folder, which should be present in your Gmail folder list (in Mail.app, scroll down, in the left-hand folder list to find it).
In Gmail, once the email is copied up and synced, select the mail or mails and click the "Remove Label" button, or, press "y" on the keyboard. Use Mail.app menu Window, Activity to confirm the sync, and, observe the labels in Gmail. At first, you will still see all the mails in the Archive label marked with an Inbox label as well, but, as they are synced up, these will be removed. Once it settles down, you can Remove the Label.

Why do it this way, taking more steps? I do this because it is easier to search and select in Mail.app, than it is in Gmail. You can search on a date range in Gmail, but it is a bit fiddly.

To keep a backup of mail, just in case, I use the excellent MailSteward utility. This lets me automatically keep a database of all my mail, which I can then periodically offload to DVD, Amazon S3 or Dropbox.

Bonus Tip

If you are happy deleting unneeded mail in Gmail and not Mail.app, then you can uncheck "Move deleted messages to the Trash Mailbox" in preferences (Mail.app, Preferences, Select Account, "Mailbox Behaviors"). This way, when you delete on Mail.app, the mail is removed from the Inbox on your local system, but, only the Inbox label is removed from the message up in Gmail. You would then have to go to Gmail and delete what you want to delete.

I hope these tips help someone.

"Vegetarian" Fresh Juice Bar in New Shinbashi Bldg 1F

Rick Cogley — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:43:00 +0000

The "Vegetarian" Fresh Juice Bar located in the New Shinbashi building 1st floor, has been in business for 40 years. They have various types of juice, but everything is in Japanese, so you would be well served with some ability in it, or to bring a friend to help. Prices are reasonable at 300 to 700 JPY, with egg or veg-fruit sandwiches available cheaply for juice customers.

Example juices -

Parsley パセリ
Kale ケール
Goya ゴーヤ
Celery セロリ
Blueberry ブルーベリー
Strawberry いちご
Melon メロン
Aloe アロエ
Shungiku 春菊
Komatsuna 小松菜
"Hard" Veg ハード野菜

… and various others. Most of the juices have a bit of fruit in them, and they seem to be putting red grapefruit in with the parsley and kale juice. The "hard" yasai is 7 types of veg mixed together, and is veg only, and "harder to drink" according to the hardworking ladies of Vegetarian.

Address - New Shinbashi Bldg 1F, Shinbashi 2-16-1, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0004

Tel - 03-3591-8676

Hours - 7:30AM to 8:30PM M-F, 9:30AM to 19:00PM Sat.

Salary-man Senryu "Sara-sen" Winners 2012

Rick Cogley — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:49:00 +0000

Dai-ichi Life Insurance announced their latest Sarariiman Senryuu (Salaried Worker Senryuu, サラリーマン川柳) competition winners. I'm late to the party by a couple months, but this time was the 25th year for the competition. In this sara-sen competition, people submit and vote on the best humorous senryu that come from the daily life of salaried workers and the news. Senryu are like Haiku but are about human life rather than nature, and have the same familiar haiku cadence of 5, 7, then 5 syllables. Let's look at some of the sara-sen this year, with my annotations and a shot at translations:

「もう、ステキ！」
Mou, suteki!
モテ期終われば
Moteki owareba
もう捨て期
Mou, suteki.

"How can I refuse you!"

As I pass my expiration date,

I am so much refuse.

Mou suteki! is an exclamation a person might use to describe how cool or beautiful someone is. Moteki is the period you are attractive or sexy in your life, and is referring to a comic, and a movie from 2011. The last line's "mou suteki" is the same as the first line and means, "it's already past its expiration date." This is clever for its three lines that sound similar.

「少女時代」
Shojo jidai
唄ってはしゃぐ
Utatte hashagu
熟女時代
Jukujo jidai

Girl's Generation:

Brought to you by,

The Mature Generation.

Shojo Jidai is the Korean girl idol group "Girl's Generation". This is referring to a group of middle aged women who go crazy singing Girls Generation tunes at Karaoke. The writer calls them "jukujo" which means mature or aged woman (either pejoratively or as a sort of MILF-ish fetish), and adds the humorous irony to this entry since it's the "Mature Women's Generation" who is doing the singing and partying!

アイウォンチュー
Ai-won-chu
いつでも君は
Itsudemo kimi wa
iPhone中
iPhone chuu

I Want You!

But it looks like I must compete,

With your iPhone, too.

The "I Want You" refers to the AKB48 tune "Heavy Rotation", expressing a girl's desire for her boyfriend, but she laments he is always "iPhone Chuu" or always playing with his iPhone, and the Japanese for those two phrases rhyme, to make the senryu work.

モテ期きた？
Moteki kita?
おごる時だけ
Ogoru toki dake
やってくる
Yatte kuru

Am I attractive?

It looks like it, but only when

I pay.

Pretty much as it reads, and refers again to the comic book and movie Moteki. The manager is saying he is only attractive to the opposite sex, if he pays for dinner. How sad!

エコ製品
Eco seihin
節電するのに
Setsuden surunoni
高くつき
Takaku-tsuki

"Eco" Products:

To save electricity,

I spend a lot.

This is a big irony this past year given the austerity last summer after the big quake. The government has an "eco points" program, where you can get various discounts and money back, if you buy so called "eco" products, with a lower energy consumption profile. The housewife writer laments how expensive it is to be "eco".

日よう日
Nichiyoubi
妻は女子会
Tsuma wa joshikai
おれじゃまかい
Ore jamakai

Every sunday,

My wife does what she will.

Am I a fifth wheel?

The writer says his wife goes to a "joshi kai" or women's club meeting every Sunday, meaning, she does what she wants. He asks "ore jama kai?" which means either "can I come too" or "am I in the way". Kind of a funny and sad state.

叱らずに
Shikarazu ni
育てた部下に
Sodateta buka ni
怒鳴られる
Donarareru

The staffer I trained,

With whom I have never lost patience,

Screams at me.

Another literal one showing a sad situation. The writer must have been so sad at the betrayal, after having patiently brought the staffer along.

便座さえ
Benza sae
オレに冷たい
Ore ni tsumetai
会社内
Kaisha nai

In this company,

Everyone's so cold to me,

Even the toilet seat.

Maybe a little subtle, but one of the things to go when we started having to save electricity was heated toilet seats (Japanese toilets are famously high tech). So this writer says he's rejected by everyone at his company, even the cold toilet seat!

妻が言う

Tsuma ga iu

「承知しました」

Shochi shimashita

聞いてみたい

Kiite mitai

"Yes Sir!"

Just once I want to hear this,

From my wife.

Shochi-shimashita is the word you use when telling someone you accept and understand their order. It is used from staff to their manager, or, from a sales rep to the customer, for instance. The writer gets obedience from his staff, in that they say "shochi-shimashita!", but never from his wife.

我が家にも

Waga ie nimo

なでしこ四人

Nadeshiko yonin

俺アウェイ

Ore away

At my house, too:

There are four "nadeshiko".

Another "away game" for me!

This is referring to the hugely needed win from the "Nadeshiko Japan" women's soccer team win, that had perfect timing to give us a little boost, after the big earthquake in Tohoku in 2011. The writer is referring to the fact that his household is all females or "nadeshiko" (the word used generally to describe proud, strong, beautiful Japanese women), and for him, it's always an "away game". I know I can relate to this one!

Who says the Japanese don't have a sense of humor!?

Japan Cyclists: Aten-hut!

Rick Cogley — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:20:00 +0000

Recently Japan law regarding bicycles has been strengthened, and it is a popular topic on TV "wide shows" (variety shows) as I write this, in Autumn 2011.

The scapegoat being used by the media is "fixies" or the fashionable piste-style bikes that usually have a friction brake in the hub. I haven't ridden a friction brake bike since the 6th grade, but the way it works is you stop by reverse-pedaling, or by skid-sliding. A Big Deal has been made about how evil fixie riders are, emphasizing their delinquency and propensity for riding with no brakes. So fixie riders in Japan have been dutifully putting caliper brakes on, lest they get stopped by the overzealous cops. Personally, I think the root of all evil is the mama-chari (cheap utility bike that moms ride) being driven by drunk salarymen, kids texting or listening to music, or the elderly, but anyway, the whipping boy du-jour is the fixie rider.

So I thought I'd post, to organize some information about the situation and laws as I can understand them, and in hopes that this will help hapless gaijin everywhere in Japan.

Just to give some background, I ride an urbanized mountain bike from Centurion, which I bought when I was not sure if I would like cycling. I wanted something decent, but that would not break the bank. Well, I really came to love cycling, and started upgrading my MTB, adding nice Mavic rims, a new Shimano Deore XT groupset, a light saddle and seatpost, and a carbon handlebar to name a few. The bike is lighter with the new components, but certainly it is more of a slog to ride compared to a road bike. Well, I'm busy with work and as much as I would love to ride daily, I am a "weekend warrior", usually cycling here in the Kanagawa area, especially down south to Shonan and up north to around Machida or Sagami-Hara. The bike roads are pretty good, the terrain varied, and the scenery is nice and rural. I love it!

Anyway, to get to the point...

What are the Basic Cycling Rules in Japan?

The basic rules for cyclists in Japan are as follows:

Cyclists are supposed to follow the same basic rules as motorists, and heed road signs.
Cyclists should use cycling paths if they exist, or the motorway, keeping to the left. If the motorway is impassible, cyclists can use sidewalks or other pedestrian roads unless there is a sign prohibiting it, but must yield to pedestrians. Cyclists should avoid extremely crowded pedestrian areas.
Cyclists must proceed on the left. Cycling against the flow of traffic is not allowed. If you are going down a sidewalk, stay on the side closest to the road, unless there is a designated bike lane on the sidewalk. Inside the bike lane, keep to your left.
Cyclists take responsibility in any accident involving a pedestrian.
Cycling on toll roads or highways is generally prohibited, but it should be marked as such.
Bike helmets are not required by law, but are "strongly recommended".
At night, lights in front and rear, and reflectors, are required. Cyclists without the required lighting can be stopped by police.
Besides the requisite lights and reflectors, bicycles also need a front and rear brake.
Cyclists must stop and look at train crossings.
Cycling while under the influence of alcohol is illegal and a punishable offense.

Of course reality is always different from a set of rules, so let me make some comments on that:

I feel that in Japan, at least where I am (Kanagawa and Tokyo), there is indeed an awareness of cyclists, mostly, but even though you are supposed to ride on the road, there are plenty of motorists and trucks parked along the shoulder. So, you end up having to kind of swerve out into traffic, or up onto the sidewalk as the case may be. I just use hand signals while I edge into traffic, and try to keep going fast.
Roads are often pretty narrow, and even when they aren't, you have people who are not so aware, who edge close to the shoulder, making it difficult or dangerous to proceed on the left. I unclip in these cases, and just have to wait for traffic to flow, or, sometimes go up onto the sidewalk.
I have had a few close calls especially with angry truck drivers and their dangerous side-mirrors, but mostly, motorists swerve out and around you. However, I would say the most danger has come from a), motorists and cyclists popping out of side roads without looking right, b), people walking diagonally or zig-zag on paths shared with pedestrians.
Shoulders are often narrow with a ditch, so it is a little hairy riding on some roads with such a configuration. You end up on the car-side of the white line, since the shoulder is so dicey.
There's no rule you have to use hand signals but I always do. Mostly, people see them and yield to you, but sometimes people don't quite get it, and even though you have right of way and are signaling a turn, they come barreling through.
I have noticed that "bike roads" tend to morph. One excellent one without too many gate barriers is the Yamato-Fujisawa Bike Road. This used to be marked as a pure cycling road, but there must have been an accident, because a couple years back, they started putting up signs every 200m or so, to be careful of pedestrians. The likely scenario is that some lamebrain stepped out in front of a cyclist, going down the cycling road at 40kph, so the local civic groups petitioned for the signs and a change in the nature of the road itself. Now it is still marked as a cycling road, but it has pedestrians walking down it. I draw the line at people have picnics on the bike road, though. I pulled an "angry gaijin" on the group of ladies having a picnic literally in the middle of the bike road ( ! ), the other week. This is not a park!

There is confusion even amongst authorities who are supposed to know these things, about what the rules are, and I think that is because the rules have changed over time, especially those regarding use of pedestrian roads. Patience is a virtue.

What Exactly are the Police Looking For?

Riding while gaijin? No, probably not, but there are a few items which are mentioned in the law specifically, which you can be sure are the hot topics, so I will list them from least to most severe -

Riding two or three cycles abreast or, riding with a passenger perched on the back (not referring to children in proper bike child seats) - JPY 20,000 fine or less
Riding without lights at night, or, changing direction suddenly - JPY 50,000 fine or less
One-handed riding, which means holding an umbrella, cell phone, texting, iPod and so on, or, failing to yield or drive carefully where required, or, failing to stop at a stop sign or light - JPY 50,000 or less fine and up to 3 months' imprisonment
Endangering pedestrians - JPY 100,000 or less fine and up to 1 year imprisonment
Drunken operation of a bicycle - JPY 1,000,000 or less fine and up to 5 years' imprisonment

When considering cases in which an accident caused bodily harm, it appears that in terms of responsibility, cars > motorcycles > bicycles > pedestrians. That means, if a car hits a bicycle or pedestrian, the car driver is always responsible and at fault, no matter how boneheaded the action of the cyclist of pedestrian. Same goes for you, on a bicycle. Heaven forbid you hit and seriously injure someone while you are on your bicycle. There might be some exception once in a blue moon, but they pretty much spell it out that the cyclist would always be at fault, and we hear horror stories of the cyclist getting jailed, and his family having to pay off massive debts. This can be more than a little bit nerve-wracking and knowing Japan, it's not an urban legend either.

Japan's Like That

It's probably a good idea to make a couple points now, about how Japan often is.

First, there's the concept of shared guilt. If you are involved in a fender-bender with another car, there is one case in which you won't have to pay. That's if the other guy admits 100% guilt, and the cops are kind enough to write that down. But most of the time, in the case of an accident, the insurance companies get in between, and start the "you're half to blame" dance. This would also happen in the case of two bicycles colliding. Probably, if both parties are genuine, and trying to help each other, it will end up amounting to nothing. But if you slam into a child or an elderly person, you can bet you will be entirely to blame, even if it is entirely their fault. Enough said.

Second, when there's something that gets peoples' ire up, you might see an overreaction or over-adjustment by police or by society in general. When some kid got killed by a crazy guy with a knife a few years back, it was found out that the guy jumped out of a tree. The response? Cut all trees back, so they look like ones from a Dr. Seuss book. Our city underwent serious uglification after that child got murdered.

Noting that there are no firearms here, another knife incident caused the law to be changed so that people could not carry knives with blades over a couple inches in length. When that law went into effect, the cops were so overzealous that a hapless elderly tourist got asked if he had a knife, and when he showed them his little Swiss Army pen-knife, they chucked him in jail! Talk about overreacting.

The point is, these laws just got strengthened, so don't be surprised that cops here and there in Japan will be extra vigilant in enforcing the rules.

Expect to have to stand at attention on this matter, for a while, until they loosen it up again.

Happy riding!

"Memoirs of a Geisha" Film

Rick Cogley — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 08:43:00 +0000

Hulu is finally available in Japan, for more money and with less content than in the US, but it is nice to be able to see even a limited amount of programming. It seems like they are releasing according to how much translation is done, however, I guess I'll take it.

One film that piqued my interest was "Memoirs of a Geisha", after having put off viewing it, having heard negative reviews. I thought it was well done, with lush visuals and a great attention to detail. There were a number of memorable scenes in the film, which really set the tone of longing of Chiyo / Sayuri, for the Chairman. The story was plausible, as it is well-known that destitute families sold off their daughters, at that time of our history.

Several irritations or questions come to mind:

Taking nothing away from the three lovely and skilled Chinese and Malaysian leads, there are plenty of lovely, skilled Japanese actresses, so why not feature more of them? I know some of them speak English too. Kudos to the Japanese they did cast.
I read that there was a lot of controversy about the written Chinese kanji characters used for words that mean geisha, because they have different meanings in Japan and China. With all those Chinese speakers involved, you would think that that sort of thing would be vetted better.
I understand the book has the narrator telling her story from New York. I would have liked to see that woven in.
I've never seen a Japanese with blue eyes, except due to the wonders of Bausch and Lomb. What's up with her blue eyes, pretty though they are?
The language coaches worked hard to get the actors less-skilled in English to deliver their lines and for the most part it succeeded pretty well. A very difficult task to be convincing in a language not your own. The Japanese was so limited, though, that you would think they could get that pronunciation right. But to this Japanese speaker, the Chinese accents on simple words like "arigato" and "hajimemashite" were pretty heavy and grating, in this context.
It is supposed to be set in Kyoto, so why not get the "background language" right, for the various conversations you can hear but are not part of the dialogue. Pretty clunky, and it had me thinking Edo, not Gion.
The musical score is vaguely Chinese-sounding, probably due to instrumentation. Perhaps they could have worked in a slightly more Japanese sound, though they certainly did use a lot of shakuhachi.

I think this could have been a master work, had they just taken the extra steps needed to apply just that extra one layer of polish. I am picky because I live here, but overall, I did like it.

Japan Girl Talk - The Secret Code 2011

Rick Cogley — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:18:00 +0000

The creatures called "gyaru" (teenage girls who hang out in the youth spots in Tokyo) have their own slang language that morphs rapidly. Nobody, even them, can keep up with it. Morning TV had a special segment about the latest "gyaru-go" language trends, which I thought were worth sharing:

"Itsumen" - いつメン

From itsumo-no-menbaa いつものメンバー. The usual group we hang out with.

"kamacho" - かまちょ

From kamatte-choudai 構って頂戴. Pay attention to me.

Said to boyfriend who is studiously ignoring your commentary.

tkmr - タカマル？

Takamaru 高まる, meaning, wanna party? Wanna go crazy? Or: are you excited?

I could be down with some tkmr. Itsumen? Kamacho!

あげモーション

Agemotion. Apparently this is more excited than merely tkmr.

So, it's a nuance thing. tkmr < agemotion.

ピー逃げ

Pii-nige. To touch your RFID school ID on the attendance sensor in the classroom, then beat a hasty retreat.

Cutting class was never so scientific!

オコなう

Oko-nau. 怒っているなう。She's upset or angry. Now I'm angry (okotteiru).

N.b: Nau is used in twitter language in Japan, to say where you are now, and uiru (will) is used to say you will.

At home now. Work will. Kind of Yoda-like, if you ask me. Just be forewarned: if you engage in pii-nige, your teacher will be okonau, I tell ya.

ロールキャベージ

Roll-cabbage. Used to describe a guy who is a vegetable eater on the outside (nice, sweet & pliant to her wishes), but a meat eater on the inside (a take-charge type).

Roll-cabbages can give you gas so be careful, ladies.

メンタル

Mental. Means she's depressed, feeling blue.

Kind of how I feel now when I try understanding teenage girls!

Now you can visit Shibuya or Harajuku armed with some understanding. Until the language morphs again!