so we now have to follow the Roman culture?

Sorry, but I really feel you guys are analyzing this too much. I really do not see tipping as a culture in the traditional sense. There's nothing in the Chinese culture that says tipping shouldn't be done.

Or the culture of US is mostly the same Christian/Western Europe (i.e. not Arabic/Muslim, not Chinese/Asian, not sub-Suhara African). But we tip in the US but not in Italy.

It's just something that comes out of local practice, which can change in a quick time, and has nothing to do with culture.

Another example, Hong Kong. If you go in 1996, you better tip all your servers, taxi drivers, bellboys, etc. But two years later, no tip necessary. No, it has nothing to do with Hong Kong reverting to Chinese rule. Instead, it's about the Asian Economic Crisis at that time. Economoy went to the drains, prices come down quickly. Tipping not necessary anymore.

That's it, folks!

sounds good to me!

"For hundreds of years Americans have been traveling to China and tipping. Has it changed the Chinese culture into a tipping society? I think not. Has it trained the Chinese to expect tips from Americans? Probably."

- hawaiiantraveler, I think we have to take into account the fact that China is so vast and populous that foreign tourism of any kind, let alone American, has barely made an impact outside of a few select areas, and none whatever in most of the country.

You can find plenty of neighbourhoods within walking distance of Tiananmen Square where you'll be the only non-local in sight and be an object of curiosity. In fact domestic tourism dwarfs the number of foreign visitors -after all, China has 1.3 billion people, a sizeable and rapidly growing proportion of whom can now afford to travel around their own country.

In future years many, many millions will also be able to travel to foreign destinations, including the US and Canada. So - all those American tourists training Chinese staff to expect big tips will be hugely outnumbered by Chinese tourists training American waiters not to expect any bloody tip at all.

Good morning Neil,

Americans are not the only ones that tip.

Is it an against tipping thing or an against Americans thing? Sounds to me like the latter.

I have already said all what I have to say on this matter in the above.

Aloha!

Actually my main point was that visitors who insist on tipping in China (and the many other places where the locals don't tip) should at least maintain a sense of proportion. I find itr difficult to credit that people can visit a foreign country with no sense of relative incomes, but for someone to recommend tipping Chinese porters $1 per bag* it must be happening. If that makes sense to you, you should be tipping American porters $10-15 per bag.

* LostinChina, I was thinking of your informant - then re-read your message and found it was your guide, who presumably was Chinese! I can only assume that in some convoluted way she was skimming the porters' tips - can't imagine how that would work, but mutual back-scratching is a highly developed art in China.

Neil,
The guide told us to tip $1 USD/bag. However the info in Swain Tours (our tour company) said to tip $1-2/person. I'm not sure what is right anymore, we just followed what the guide told us to do. THe guides and drivers did not seem to be surprised by the tips at all. There were guidelines in the Swain Tours info that told how much to tip the guides and drivers too.

I guess we took everything at face value while we were there, but maybe we were taken advantage of.

I suddenly remember something. We started "tipping" Chinese tour guides and drivers since the early days of the opening of China (i.e. ~1979) with Western cigarettes. Very popular with them. We gave them brands like "Kent" or "555".

Again, only tour guides and drivers. Nobody else.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, LostinChina - I fell for worse than that in China.

I just checked my assumptions with my two daughters, who returned from 3 years in China early this year. The nearest they got to tipping was an occasional "keep the change" offer to a cabbie. The responses ranged from "thanks" to mild offense, a sort of "do I look like a charity case?" reaction. Although they seldom saw the inside of an upscale hotel they suspected that things might be a little different there, but doubted that many Chinese guests would tip.

I've probably told this story before, but in Beijing we took a day tour to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs with a group that was about half Chinese, half foreign (including some Japanese, Thai and German people). It was very obvious that none of the locals had the slightest intention of tipping the guide, who in any event would have been doing pretty well out of the inevitable kickbacks from the compulsory "shopping opportunities" that we endured en route.

Something else I discovered was that the Chinese customers had paid a little more than half what foreigners staying in upmarket "western" hotels had paid (Y160 vs. Y300 pp). As we were virtually the only foreigners staying in our hotel, we got the "real" price too.

As a matter of interest, we just got back from two weeks in Bali, where a 5-10% service charge is commonly levied (maybe a reaction to the fact that most of their tourists come from Europe, Australia and other Asian countries, not least other Indonesians. On only one occasion did anyone try to extract a tip from us - a cheeky waitress in a restaurant in Legian, who had done nothing in particular to warrant it. I explained that even in the US, the protocol is that you actually return all the customer's change and leave the decision on how much to tip to him or her. Her method, not returning the change at all, was counter-productive.

Neil:
If I remember correctly, the tour guide said that the money we choose to tip them would have been divided between her, the driver and the other guide I had on my tour that picked us up from the airport. She said that $20 was usually the normal tip per person/family on this tour. Honestly, I really don't know or understand the dynamics of the kick backs and money these tour guides receive, but she did say that her salary alone is quite small and tipping helps supplement her income. There were about 20 people in my tour group and everyone gave their $20 without any hesitation. I thought they deserved it, but am I missing something here? Did I do something wrong here?

Don, to be honest I did the same thing in Vietnam at the end of a 3-week small group tour. It's hard to do anything else under the circumstances, even if you wanted to. I was really just ruminating on the fact that people working in certain tourism-related occupations are becoming very well-off people - almost certainly guides to western tourists (not domestic tourists) would be earning more than doctors in China.

By way of an anecdotal comparison, a close friend of my daughters, a university graduate with good English skills working in a mid-level admin job in a provincial capital, makes 1500 yuan (US$198) a month or about US$1/hr.

Shanghainese, you brought up something I've been wondering about: I am nearing the end of a 3-week stay in a small hotel in Beijing. The housekeeping service has been extraordinary and I was thinking I'd like to leave the women a small gift. Do you have any suggestions for something that would be appropriate?

It appears that there are a number of staff - some at more management levels and others who do the cleaning - and I was trying to come up with something they could share. All I can think of is candy or bakery cakes or the like, but that may just be insulting!

Thanks for any inspiration you can provide!
- ggreen

ggreen: That's very kind and thoughtful of you. For sharing, nice box of chocolates or a large cake (round or 1/4 sheet depending on the number of women) with '"thank you" written in chinese on it.

If you'd like give something individually, nice chocolate bars if there is a large number of women, or if a smaller number, some face or hand lotion (Lo'real, Olay, Dove).

Thanks Shanghainese! You've given me some good, concrete ideas. I will go out shopping and see what I come up with!

ggreen

gifting : China :: tipping : USA

We plan a 6-day trip into China from Hong Kong in November with travel agency ChinaTravelGuide. My husband & I will have a guide & driver. When asked about tipping policy, I received this answer: "What is the customary suggested tipping amount? Is the custom to tip daily or at the end of the trip?

If you are satisfied with the service offer by our guide and driver,
USD8.00 per person per day for the guide and USD4.00 per
person per day for the driver is expected. This is our suggestion
only. You can tip them at your convenience. And it doesn't matter whether you tip them daily or tip them at the end of the tour in each city. It's your choice."

From earlier posts on this topic, that amount sounds rather high ($48USD to guide; $24USD to driver).

I'd never use that agency again if they tell me how much to tip in China!

I wonder if they actually pay the guides and drivers...

As they're per-person rates the total would be US$96 + US$48. Depending how much work those guys got in a given month, it amounts to a pretty good income in China, even for the driver, and that excludes the usual kickbacks.

toedtoes has asked a very good question. In Vietnam we were asked by our (Australian) tour company to tip the tour leader (an Australian girl), guide and driver (Vietnamese). It amounted to good money in Vietnam, at least for the locals. Was this their only income? I was never able to determine that.

Neither my wife nor I are tight people, but we did wonder whether we were being asked to help create a sort of tourist-industry aristocracy in a country where there were so many more deserving cases, like orphanages.

And a good tour guide is usually expert at pitching for the sympathy vote, sometimes by creating what Hollywood would call a convincing "backstory" of personal suffering and deprivation. The best we've ever encountered was a Chinese immigrant who led a walking tour of SF's Chinatown. By the time he'd finished recounting his tales of poverty, famine and disease in the old country we were all sobbing and pressing moist bills into his hands.

If you join a tour in Hong Kong to China, catered to local Hong Kong people, they'll suggest a tip of 60HKD/RMB per person per day. That's about US$7.5, including guide and driver.