I was sitting quietly on a couch in the lobby of Zurich Continental Hotel,
waiting for a limousine to the airport,
when a young couple of Japanese honeymooner came out of the elevator
and walked to the counter early in the morning.
Guest : Check out, please.
Clerk : [ summing up whole slips together ] No breakfast?
Guest : YES!
Clerk : Yes? You did have TWO breakfasts?
Guest : NO!
Clerk : You mean only ONE breakfast!
Guest : NO, NO!
The clerk seemed then to be a little puzzled and annoyed, and became a little uneasy.
I was wondering whether the clerk had assumed that a just-married Oriental couple might have already consumed three or four breakfasts
while the restaurant staff happened to fail to keep him informed of.
Clerk : OK, OK. Let me check with the restaurant...
Guest : YES.
The clerk made a lengthy talk over the phone in German,
which I could hardly comprehend, and he talked by himself matter-of-factly.
Clerk : No breakfast!
Guest : YES! [ It means, Yes you are correct, in Japanese sense. ]
The clerk glancing up to the guests, no more question was made.
The Japanese tourist paid the bill quietly.