about 8 years ago I was staying at the Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo in Ikebukuro, and at that time my (wireless) phone didn't have service, plus the rooms didn't have wi-fi; it was only available in the lobby, so it was kind of inconvenient trying to keep in contact with people. I went out sightseeing in the morning and was hoping to meet my friend Shohei in the afternoon. Because of the phone issue, he had no way of contacting me though, except by calling my hotel room. When I got back to the room after the morning in Ueno Zoo, my hotel phone light was flashing but I couldn't figure out how to access the messages. I fiddled around with it for a few minutes and then gave up and went down to the lobby to ask for help.
My Japanese is very poor in the best of conditions but back then it was basically nonexistent. So instead, at the front desk I just asked if anyone spoke English. One of the staff somewhat reluctantly approached me and offered a hesitant greeting. I told him, "I just came from my hotel room and can't figure out how to access my phone messages."
He gave me a very puzzled look, "Sumima...sen???"
I repeated myself a little more simply, "I just want to get the messages off my phone!"
He continued to look at me like this:
as if he couldn't quite believe what I was asking. Eventually after a few more failed attempts to get my point across, he was like "Please wait a moment...I get manager."
The manager came over and already had a concerned look in his eyes, but also, an ever-so-politely confrontationally rigid demeanor. "So sorry sir...we don't have this service in this hotel."
At this point I was getting a little heated, "Huh, what do you mean? I just want my phone messages. I don't understand the problem!"
Finally I guess he was became a little frustrated trying to communicate with me orally, because he took out a little pad of paper and wrote out a couple words and pointed to it rather forcefully. I read what he wrote: "NO MASSAGE."
I was immediately super-embarrassed. My entire body was embarrassed. All this time he thought this obnoxious American black dude was trying to arrange to have a hooker brought up to his hotel room. Somehow though, once I realized the confusion I was able to enunciate a little more carefully, "not massage...MESSage" (What I didn't know at that time was that in Japanese massage is pronounced
massaaji and message is pronounced
messeeji, or better just use
rusuden for phone message/voicemail/answering machine and avoid confusion). And when he understood me, he was equally embarrassed and apologetic.
Long story short, I got my message but it was too late to meet up with Shohei.