AltJapan

Galapagos Syndrome

"Galapagos." The island that gave rise to the theory of evolution has become a pejorative here in Japan. First applied to domestic mobile phone makers who can't figure out a way to compete anywhere outside the controlled confines of their home country's marketplace, it's since been applied to everything from the anime industry to the growing insularity of young Japanese. It's basically a way of describing the nation of Japan as becoming shyer, less adventurous, and all-around more isolated and introverted. 

That's why Japanese electronics maker Sharp turned heads when it revealed the name of its new line of tablet computers last September: "Galapagos." Much head-scratching followed, then shrugging -- with "innovations" like track balls (!), these tablets aren't going to be knocking the iPad or even Kindle off their pedestals anytime soon -- but today, finally, the Mainichi Shimbun ran an article about the story behind the name.

The brainchild of thirty-year Sharp veteran Keiko Okada, she was fully aware of the connotations of the word. "This company's become too corporate, and I wanted to drop a bomb in their laps," she told the newspaper in an interview published this morning. Mission accomplished.

But here's the real question: how do CONSUMERS feel about it? It's been three months since the first announcement. Let's turn to the peanut gallery at 2ch to find out how the "man on the net" feels. (And with the usual 2ch dose of misogyny, there isn't any doubt that most of these posters are men):

Epic fail.

Masochism pure and simple.

When I heard that lame name I knew a woman had to be behind it.

The most weasel-y product name, ever.

Make something better than Galaxy Pad or iPad and try again.

The really ironic thing is that none of the products in the line have anything that really differentiates them from competitors.

Women.

Well, at least we're talking about it.

I like the name. It's way more daring than the usual Japanese product name. As for the product itself, I'll pass.

I actually tried one when I went to buy a mouse pad the other day. The page-turn speed and touchscreen response were a joke. This never should've left the lab.

Last weekend, the Galapagos display area set up next to the escalators at Bic Camera was totally empty of customers. Then again, the Sony Reader area was a graveyard, too.

WiFi Wasteland

 

My latest article on CNNgo is all about Tokyo's often frustrating lack of WiFi coverage. If you've ever spent any time trying to get work done here, you know how hard it can be to find a reliable hotspot in this supposedly super high-tech city. They may be few and far between (for now), but their numbers are growing. I pounded the pavement and keyboard for several weeks to bring you the most up-to-date list of Tokyo's free WiFi hotspots as of April 2010. Feel free to weigh in here or at CNNgo with any others you find!

The Mysterious Case of the Spare Prick

A few weeks ago, I noticed an odd translation for the lock-equipped luggage racks aboard Japan Railway's new Narita Express trains: 

When the set combination is forgotten, it becomes a delivery of the spare prick in the train terminal station.

What the hell? The Japanese is straightforward enough:

指定された暗証番号をお忘れの場合は、列車終着駅でお荷物の引渡しとなります。

Which gives us, normally,

If you forget your combination, your luggage will be returned to you at the final stop.

So whither the "prick"?

After doing some poking around (huh, huh) online, I realized that the N'Ex is just one victim -- there seem to be other examples throughout Japan. And I think I've managed to discover the culprit. It appears to be none other than Excite Japan! Try giving the above sentences a whirl through Excite Japan's online translation service. Hell, just send お荷物 (luggage) through:

 

So there we have it. Intriguingly, Excite Japan's translation tool (huh, huh) is apparently powered by a company called BizLingo, sold by Accela Technology for the low, low monthly licensing fee of 119,000 yen per CPU (additional CPUs just 69,000 yen each, with a 250,000 yen setup fee.) Who knows what kind of deal they've cut with an online provider like Excite, but whatever the case, this particular system seems to be responsible for a rash of spare pricks across Japan.

But why "spare prick?" It is so far beyond the ken of the usual bad machine translation that its appearance has shocked even normally oblivious-to-Engrish native Japanese speakers. This blog theorizes that it may be an extrapolation from やっかい者, someone who is a "burden" to have around. やっかい者 also happens to be the translation of a British idiom I'd never heard before, "like a spare prick at a wedding," thus giving us a connection, however convoluted, to the spare pricks aboard the Narita Express.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle, when it comes to extra genitalia.

Post-Yoda

First yokai, now Yoda: Hiroko makes the Washington Post again! Her (long since resolved) Facebook plight gets a brief mention in this article, but her namesake gets used as the anchor image! Read all about it in the Style section of today's Post. 

Pika Pika

In this interview with The Japan Times Online, Alt talks about his love of Japanese toys, the explosion of otaku culture abroad and trying not to focus on some fat guy dressed as Pikachu.

That's right, kids: I got "blogrolled!" Check out the full interview over at The Japan Times.

I Live in Your Future

At least, Facebook thinks so. 

The philosophical implications of this are staggering.

15,284 km to Tokyo

On a whim, Hiroko queried Google Maps for directions from Tokyo to Washington DC. Rather than an aircraft, it advises kayaking across the Pacific, with a brief stop in Hawaii -- just like common sense would indicate. This is too awesome to not be intentional... I think? The direct water-to-highway connections would assume ownership of a vehicle akin to 007's hover-gondola from "Moonraker." Google Maps

Livin La Vida Yoda

Yokai Attack! co-author Hiroko Yoda's crusade to register her name on Facebook has gotten her a blitz of press. Boing Boing, Lucasfilm's official Star Wars blog, Star Wars fan site  The Force.net, bloggers Jean Snow and Lisa Katayama, and today, somewhat incredibly, London's Daily Telegraph. The quest finally ended last week when a Facebook service rep finally allowed her to register, confirming that "the name 'Yoda,' also being the name of a popular Star Wars character, is on [a] list of blocked names." Note to other Yodas out there: good luck signing up.

The really crazy thing about this is that Lucasfilm, who you'd think would be the one who actually cared, doesn't seem to have an issue with anyone using the name "Yoda." It was purely a Facebook thing. Why on Alderaan would they go to so much trouble to defend a trademark that isn't theirs? Whatever the case, all's well that ends well.

8/29 Update! Now its been picked up by Japan's Gigazine...

Life as Yoda

In the wake of the dreaded Facebook Incident, which ended yesterday after they relented and allowed her to register, Hiroko Yoda writes about life as Yoda:

I'm a Japanese woman, and my last name really is Yoda. It's a common family name in Japan. "Yoda" the Jedi Master is actually pronounced with a long "o" in Japanese, which makes it different-sounding enough that the connection only becomes apparent when you write out my name in English letters instead of kanji characters. So even though I of course saw the films here in Japan, I never made a connection between the character Yoda and my own name.

But whenever I leave Japan, it's a different story. People think I changed my name because I'm a crazy Star Wars fan, or that I'm just kidding around. Even people who know I'm not making it up are always giving me Yoda trinkets and keychains and figures, so I had this little shrine to him going on for a while. Maybe because I'm female, or because I look foreign, people don't usually make a lot of comments directly to me. But Matt gets stuff all the time. Whenever he has to tell my name to an airline ticket agent or a hotel receptionist or something, it's totally common to get a response like "Ha-ha-ha! That's a good one, sir! Anyway, what's her real name?" Once he was even asked semi-seriously "Is her first name, then, 'Master'?" And then there was this latest incident with Facebook. I tried signing up like ten times, and it always rejected my name. Finally we figured out that a filter was blocking "Yoda" because it thought I was trying to register a fictional name! They finally let me sign up, but it took several days and a lot of emails.

Ironically, since Matt's last name is Alt, he gets his own share of funny business from people who think he's using an Internet handle name in real life ("is your middle name ESC? Are you going to name your kid 'Tab'?") But Yoda sounds even more over the top in English, so it can be a lot harder to convince people that my name really is real.

So we do occasionally have a hard time, but on the other hand, it's nice to have a short and memorable name because people easily remember us. :) "Alt and Yoda" isn't an easy combination to forget. At least we hope so.

By the way, I also named my dog Luke. So his full name is Luke Yoda! (He is so old right now, he sort of does act like a real Jedi.)

Face/Off

Facebook won't approve Hiroko for an account, apparently because her family name is "Yoda." Never mind the fact that it's a common family name in Japan. Over 24 hours and no response from their customer service team, either. What, does George Lucas own that particular name now?