maxiewawa

Aika found the hotel that I have been staying at in Tokyo on the internet. On the site it says that foreigners are not welcome, but residents are. I have heard bad things about Japanese hoteliers so I was a bit nervous about staying there (I remembered Ben Ross’ post at his blog about crabby Japanese hoteliers). I asked her to make sure that it was ok for me to stay there when we checked in.

As we walked in, there was a sign on the door. “We welcome guests who speak Japanese or have a Japanese speaking contact. Thank you for your understanding.” Ah, so that was it. As it turned out, it was the kind of hotel where they don’t let you take your key out the door. The front desk closed at midnight, so this meant that you had to be home before 12 or you’d get locked out. I am guessing that some 外国人 had misunderstood the instructions given to him and raised a stink about it. For this reason, anyone without a Japanese speaking contact (or who couldn’t speak Japanese themselves) was barred.

I speak Japanese quite well. If someone asks me a question, I can answer 90 percent of the time. But when japanese people talk to other Japanese people I can’t catch very much. I wasn’t sure if this counted as speaking for the purposes of checking in to this “only Japanese speakers” hotel, but as it turned out since I had Aika it wasn’t a problem.

I haven’t had to speak to the guy at the front desk very often. He has welcomed me back every night, let me know when Aika called if I wasn’t in the room, greeted me in the morning, and was kind enough to lend me an umbrella this morning. I have asked him about leaving luggage in the lobby, about what time to check out, and asked him for another business card once.

These efforts at conversation haven’t been major, I feel like it’s been quite an achievement. This elderly guy that mans the desk at this modest hotel was the first person that I have spoken Japanese to that a) didn’t know me and b) wasn’t a teacher or a friend. I have of course spoken to waitstaff/asked people for directions but this was the first time that I had to do something that couldn’t be explained with body language and pointing.

Next is Korean: I hope to have more than a 2 second conversation with a Korean person (every Korean conversation I have at the moment ends in me going “뫄/huh?”)