Well it's funny to me anyway... but only in retrospect!
I was working in London in a Japanese restaurant. I had been studying Japanese for about 4 years at the time and I was hoping to improve my fluency by working at the restaurant and in the evenings I wrote a column for a martial arts magazine.
Mama-San suggested that I might want to write my orders (I was a waitress) in Romanji and in English but I refused. I wanted to write only in Japanese - I didn't want to be different from everyone else (as the only Gaijin waitress I didn't like being 'different' and I wanted to improve my language skills - oh the vanity of youth! I refused to answer if any of the other staff spoke to me in English. I wanted to only speak and write in Japanese.
Anyway, one terrible night I served the wrong dish to a non-Japanese customer.
Even the Japanese customers never ordered this particular dish. There was quite a lot of interest and surprise from the kitchen that anyone, let alone a Gaijin would order this dish! It wasn't a common order... Everyone was staring as I proudly presented his dish - a bowl of fish heads...
The look on his face! Needless to say I was told that in future I had to write in English...
It was 3 months later before they allowed me to write in Japanese again when I was taking the customers orders! Oh the shame!
edit - sorry, I don't know why this is showing in 2 places. I might have pressed the wrong button. I don't know, I only intended to post it once? Sorry. It wasn't even that funny to post it twice!
I was working in London in a Japanese restaurant. I had been studying Japanese for about 4 years at the time and I was hoping to improve my fluency by working at the restaurant and in the evenings I wrote a column for a martial arts magazine.
Mama-San suggested that I might want to write my orders (I was a waitress) in Romanji and in English but I refused. I wanted to write only in Japanese - I didn't want to be different from everyone else (as the only Gaijin waitress I didn't like being 'different' and I wanted to improve my language skills - oh the vanity of youth! I refused to answer if any of the other staff spoke to me in English. I wanted to only speak and write in Japanese.
Anyway, one terrible night I served the wrong dish to a non-Japanese customer.
Even the Japanese customers never ordered this particular dish. There was quite a lot of interest and surprise from the kitchen that anyone, let alone a Gaijin would order this dish! It wasn't a common order... Everyone was staring as I proudly presented his dish - a bowl of fish heads...
The look on his face! Needless to say I was told that in future I had to write in English...
It was 3 months later before they allowed me to write in Japanese again when I was taking the customers orders! Oh the shame!
edit - sorry, I don't know why this is showing in 2 places. I might have pressed the wrong button. I don't know, I only intended to post it once? Sorry. It wasn't even that funny to post it twice!