Update from China trip in a week posting of a week or so ago. Cancelled tour. Setting out on my own 11\2 to 11\9, Beijing, Xi'an & Shanghai. Tour operator contacted me re: tipping. He suggests minimum $10.00 US per day each for driver & guide. According to Peters' "Beijing" I should get the car and driver for all day for half that. I hope I'm not interpreting this wrong.
I'm a little nervous about arriving at 9:00pm on Sunday night without a room. The Crowne Plaza on Wangfujing St. is offering $81.00 per night online. I like the central location as a jumping off point for my daily excursions. Is $81 too high? If you tell me 1 more time that I can do better just walking in, that's what I'll do.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Rick

My own reply. $10 = 80 yuan, not 800. A $10 tip still seems high for a country with little tipping when you can get a car\driver for 300-400 yuan for the day ($40-$50). I don't consider myself cheap but, I hate to appear dumber than I am. Rickg.

A taxi all day can be had for Y300 without much difficulty. Depending on exactly what's to be done around town, hopping from cab to cab and using the meter can be cheaper. Trips out of town will vary in cost according to the destination chosen. Some hotels thing Y1200 is a fair price for one of their cars. 25% of that is possible.

The Crowne Plaza has gone downhill a bit in the last few years and is perhaps the wrong choice of hotel, at least until its long overdue refurbishment is complete (rooms as well as lobby). I certainly think $81 is too high when there are better hotels going cheaper. If you are keen to stay there, unless you happen to meet some freak busy night, yes, you would usually expect slightly to improve on that price by walking in, and gently negotiating. But you'll likely get a better price by booking the week before you go, if you want to book. Now is not the time to be looking for good November prices.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

We crossed in the ether. There is NO tipping. There is only the price you negotiate, and that's all you pay. That is the way China is. Those from the tourism industry who tell you otherwise are conning you. This has nothing to do with being cheap. If you are determined to force your ways on others, then tip. If you are determined to give people an extra unexpected benefit when they've already charged you as much as they can get away with, then tip. Regardless of this, no Chinese would tip.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Peter is a notorious non-tipper and take his advice on this matter at your own risk. While it is true that Chinese do not tip, they also do not utilize the same kinds of tour guides that foreigners do. I would hate to be there at the end of a day when someone stiffs the guide and driver. They, like wait staff, taxi drivers, and other service people in the West make very little salary and count on tips.

Ten dollars a day each for guide and driver is definitely too high but a dollar or two for the driver and $3 to $5 for the guide is appropriate if you get good service.

I expect to get flamed by our chintzy friend, but he is just plain wrong when it comes to tipping tour professionals by foreigners in China.

I usually ignore posts which are impertinent or abusive but as I've decided to take a long break from this board, I'll make an exception in this case, although the following points have been made before:

The assertion that the tour guides, drivers, etc. make very little, is quite simply false. In fact they do very well indeed, better than the overwhelming majority of people in China in fact, hundreds of times better than them in many cases, and a large amount of their income comes through cheating you or being a party to that cheating. Even if tipping were a custom in China, it would not be appropriate here.

Even the lower sums mentioned, incorrectly, as being appropriate, especially if coming from a tour group of a dozen or so, would provide in a single tip a greater sum than the disposable income of an urban family for a month; several multiples of the monthly income of most Chinese. Even if tipping were the custom, even if tour guides for foreigners were a special and deserving case (quite the opposite is true) these sums would be vastly disproportionate. The guides may disagree, but so would you if you had a second mortgage to support.

More detailed information on this topic have appeared in other posts.

I'll break one more personal rule, which is to avoid being like the poster who begins all her posts with "I lived in X for five years", sometimes goes on to give inaccurate or out-of-date information, then indulges extensively in personal attacks when that information is queried. Expats are all too often the worst possible source of accurate information--not least because they don't experience a place in the same way as a visitor, and they are busy doing other things, rather than keeping up with changes. I'm still going to avoid the attacks part, but I am going to offer some credentials for my assertions on tipping. Skip the next few paragraphs if that (not unreasaonably) sounds tedious, until you get to the *.

I've been travelling regularly and extensively in China since 1986, and I've had several periods of residence there. I speak Mandarin to a modest but adequate level, and I'm the author, co-author, development editor, updater, or editor of several books on travel in China from well-known publishers, including two to appear later this year.

Much of what I'm able to post here is the result of research undertaken for those books, and for articles for a number of notable magazines and newspapers around the world (and even more rather less notable ones). My particular observations on tipping are supported by my editors and co-authors, who would all tell you the same thing, and are the result both of field research (going on trips and listening to the discussions of the guides and drivers, conversations with tour guides I've got to know personally, conversations with friends and acquaintances employed in several major hotels, conversations with tour operators known to me in China, observation of the behaviour of guides with tour groups in shopping situations, etc.), and desk research, including a recent survey of about 20 tour companies I contacted formally to enquire about policies on tipping and other matters, and a limited study of the (largely fanciful) statistics on incomes published by the Chinese government.

Needless to say, having spent several years in China, spent hundreds of nights in Chinese hotels, had thousands of meals in Chinese restaurants, and taken thousands of taxi journeys, during almost all of which it's been my business to take notes of what's going on, I have something of a database of experience to work with. I also have a large number of Chinese friends who simply express bewilderment or snigger at foreign tipping habits.

* The results of all this research would take even more space than this current tedious waffle to set out--and again, I only trouble readers with this list in order to make clear on what grounds I offer the advice on tipping I do (views which are commonplace amongst those professionally invoved in researching such matters, and who have no links to the tourism industry) and I shan't mention it again. Nevertheless, we all make mistakes on China, and I've been rightly corrected by others on this board in the past, and learned a few things myself. But in this particular case I'm quite sure I'm not mistaken.

A case for tipping in China would be more credibly and creditably made if it were couched in polite language and actually contained some arguments and information, rather than simply contradiction, and came from a less anonymous source.

Some on this board have said clearly they'll do as they please when overseas, but my view is that one should adapt to local norms. Call me conventional and dull, if you will. In developed nations, like everyone else, I find out what the norms are, and follow them--10% here, 20% there, 0% elsewhere (Japan, New Zealand, etc.) In China the result of this is that I join 1.3 billion others in following their norm. This seems to me not only a matter of common sense, but of courtesy. But you may be so stuck on the way you do things that you just wish to carry on regardless, or you may be uncomfortable with the idea that you might have been conned on an earlier trip. All of that is entirely up to you, but it still doesnt make tipping in China the norm, even within the carefully controlled environment of a guided tour, where foreign visitors are often stripped of every penny possible.

Best wishes for an enjoyable trip to China to those going this autumn. Tourism from overseas is well down and you should find relatively preferential prices, and plenty of elbow room. I wish I could be there.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

While it's true that there used to be no tipping in China and what little tipping exists now purely because of foreign tourism (the Chinese tourist never tips), there is a certain expectation of receiving tips amongst some who work in the tourism/hospitality industry where the percentage of foreigners, especially Americans, is high. Without going into whether it is deserving or fair and strictly from my own point of view, when I first went to China in 1992 I did not encounter the expecation of a tip anywhere. More recently I've encountered a few bell hops or room service personnel (not all, just a few) who sort of linger around and wait to see if you give a tip, so that tells me that right or wrong, deserving or not, there is an expectation. Same goes for the tour guides and it's because of the 'tipping guidelines' that are published by every tour company. Of course, that same tour guide would never expect a tip from a Chinese tourist. Outside of the tourist confines, you'll indeed find that tipping is almost non-existent (bribery however is a different story) and will probably have a waiter or waitress chasing you down to return any extra change you 'forgot'.

On another note, I wonder who Peter's referring to in his above post? I've been reading this board for over 2 years and I've seen only one expat who posts regularly and she is always very polite.