I'm not tipping them!

[DivineMadman]

The Scottish company  Skyscanner, now owned by a Chinese company, so likely not a front for the evil Americans, reports as follows for Hong Kong:

 

 

 

Tipping in Hong Kong

Tipping is not generally part of Hong Kong’s culture, except in hotels, where tipping is considered mandatory. HK$10 to HK$20 should be given to bellboys and maids, and remember to tip your concierge if you make use of the service.

In restaurants and bars, 10% is usually automatically added to the bill, but you should still leave a further 5% to 10% in cash for the waiters. Hairstylists will usually expect between 5% and 10%, and although taxi drivers don’t expect a tip, it is widely accepted that you should round up to the nearest dollar, or leave an additional dollar, at least.

But as was wisely noted above, just because it's on the internet doesn't mean its true.

[paborn]

Interesting experience by a447. But I thought generally tips are not expected in Hong Kong.

 

Granted bellboys do expect small tips but certainly not in restaurants, (proper) bars, am I wrong?

 

Of course nobody would be offended if you offer a tip.

I found this:

Tipping in Hong Kong. Tipping is not generally part of Hong Kong's culture, except in hotels, where tipping is considered mandatory. HK$10 to HK$20 should be given to bellboys and maids, and remember to tip your concierge if you make use of the service.

 

I always do my research ( there is a wonderful series of books called "culture shock" as in "Culture Shock - Thailand " that are intended for long-term visitors to a huge number of countries but I find them fascinating )

 

I agree totally with a447a - I tend to stay a few favourite places. I mention Toy Boys all the time. I tip the captain who helps me and advises me, my waiter, the barkeep and even the bar manager ) If a boy has not been offed - I bring him over and have him sit with me, a few hugs later he is getting a tip he deserves. I found on my last trip that there were a number of freelancers allowed to work in TB, who consequently, earned nothing and were a little desperate for a tip. 100 B, to them, made me a "big man on campus" - hell, I'm on vacation.

 

I'd be very interested if the knowledge base here would give me an idea of where to start when I make my first trip to Jomtien. Is there a bar with the kind of workers who might suite a guy who loves Toy Boys? Sort of swimmers builds not overly fem - just you a good looking boy next door.

[vinapu]

while subject of tipping habits and customs is interesting and so is this thread I think we should be more relaxed and not so uptight with our habits and self-imposed  rules.

 

Clinging to every penny while economically beneficial may spoil vacations very fast when one is in mind frame that everybody is to squeeze the last satang from them and cheat on giving change. Creating scene about being shortchanged 10 or 20 baht is hardly worth travelling to Thailand or in fact any place for.

 

Throwing money around without extracting tangible benefit other than feeling good for a moment is far from wise.

 

I found that not as much amount but very fact that I'm paying a bit more than price list creates a lot of good will so I do tip - this is what a447 observed above.   

 

Lavish tips are not spoiling anybody because recipients know very well that this is more exception than rule so they gladly pocket money but don't expect you repeat the feast next time.

 

We will be still served without a tip but likely any enthusiasm will be missing.

 

While I understand and kind of sympathize with Christian position of not tipping , he can afford it as he is known to frequent places so repeat business gives him leeway of economizing.

 

So I tip but watch  two things - is tipping improving my experience next time , even if it's just  smile of recognition,  and , what I consider very important - is tip imposed on me ?.

It's why boys planting beside without invitations, pesky mamasans and offed boys,  asking for taxi money in the morning are not getting anything other than occasional lecture ' you already got plenty ' as I'm not known for sticking to market rates religiously.

[vinapu]

 

I'd be very interested if the knowledge base here would give me an idea of where to start when I make my first trip to Jomtien. Is there a bar with the kind of workers who might suite a guy who loves Toy Boys? Sort of swimmers builds not overly fem - just you a good looking boy next door.

you will be spoiled for a choice IMHO, It's me who likes hunks who feels on foreign territory at Jomtien but I still like it

[paborn]

Fair enough. But, is there a bar that has a friendly ambience, a nice manager/owner. Some place a guy would like to hang his hat.

[vinapu]

... bar that has a friendly ambiance, a nice manager/owner. 

Unless offing material I can't care less who person in charge of bar is

[kokopelli]

 

I'd be very interested if the knowledge base here would give me an idea of where to start when I make my first trip to Jomtien. Is there a bar with the kind of workers who might suite a guy who loves Toy Boys? Sort of swimmers builds not overly fem - just you a good looking boy next door.

There are many bars in Jomtien Complex so not easy to give specific recommendations.  As for swimmers build and not overly fem, you may be asking for too much! But just go and look and seek.

[anddy]

I don't know that we'll ever be able to agree that tipping is somehow an American religion being spread around the world.  I certainly remember having to make note of whether ​servis compris  when I was young and traveling in Europe.  

 

Also, India.  Tipping is a part of the fabric of life there by, for and among the locals.  ("baksheesh")  I don't think you can blame that on the American hegemony.  So, just saying.

Now that you mention it, yes I've heard the word baksheesh before, I usually put it some middle-eastern context (no idea if I'm right). Interestingly, the expression has also been absorbed into German language and is sometimes used (I think) with a slight connotation of being a bribe rather than a mere tip.

As for Americans being "the missionaries of tipping religion" maybe that's actually not true, but merely a perception because (1) Americans travel more or we /I meet them more easily than Indian travelers, and (2) they tend to be rather vocal about it. Being vocal includes close US friends of mine who I sometimes discuss tipping habits and requirements when traveling together.

 

At great risk of being called racist - just because something is on youtube doesn't make it true.  The American struggle with racial equity has been long and hard.  Tipping works the same for blacks and for whites.  

Thats why I explicitly said in my post :

 

... I only very recently learned of an apparent very dark history of US-American wage/tipping structure, as explained in the video posted below. I don't know if it is true, ...

 

 

I said "apparent" and "don't know if true". I found it a plausible and interesting historical aspect. That doesn't change the fact that that the system works that way now regardless of race, of course. And that alleged racial history is not the reason I don't like such tipping structures, it is for different reasons I explained in my post.

 

 

 

Anddy, you made some interesting arguments in the discussion and presented unique points of view. But the videos do not serve you well.

 

Two to three minutes in duration, the videos attempt to persuade the viewer that the practice of tipping was developed to compensate African-Americans for working as waiters. It uses as evidence some cartoons pulled off the net. And then tries to extrapolate this claim to prove that tipping is therefor racist.

 

It's illogical and unfounded.

is it so illogical and unfounded that the practice was adopted and expanded to compensate former slaves and avoid paying them actual wages? On the contrary, it dies sound plausible to me, though I'm not saying I think it's true, I'm no historian of African-American history, and have no inclination of doing lots of research into the subject. Therefore, I treat it as plausible, and even if true probably just ONE reason among others, as is usually the case in complex social situations.

... I only very recently learned of an apparent very dark history of US-American wage/tipping structure, as explained in the video posted below. I don't know if it is true, ...

 

[anddy]

[...] I think we should be more relaxed and not so uptight [...]

great advice in almost EVERY context  

[paborn]

is it so illogical and unfounded that the practice was adopted and expanded to compensate former slaves and avoid paying them actual wages? On the contrary, it does sound plausible to me, though I'm not saying I think it's true, I'm no historian of African-American history, and have no inclination of doing lots of research into the subject. Therefore, I treat it as plausible, and even if true probably just ONE reason among others, as is usually the case in complex social situations.

 

I'm sorry, but, historically this is just rubbish.  Most former slaves in the South became low paid agricultural workers, then sharecroppers who worked for a small share of the crops to sell.  Slaves did not suddenly all become waiters in restaurants. The fact of tipping had existed in American establishments since colonial times it was, emphatically not invented for African Americans.  Frankly, it took a long time for African Americans in the North to reach a point where they would be hired for jobs where they came into close contact with whites. Kitchen jobs etc. were their first entry points to restaurants.

[paborn]

Now that you mention it, yes I've heard the word baksheesh before, I usually put it some middle-eastern context (no idea if I'm right). Interestingly, the expression has also been absorbed into German language and is sometimes used (I think) with a slight connotation of being a bribe rather than a mere tip.

As for Americans being "the missionaries of tipping religion" maybe that's actually not true, but merely a perception because (1) Americans travel more or we /I meet them more easily than Indian travelers, and (2) they tend to be rather vocal about it. Being vocal includes close US friends of mine who I sometimes discuss tipping habits and requirements when traveling together.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, "Bakschisch"  in German and French is a small bribe. The word was used ( it derives from Persian ) wherever Islam spread so it has the same meaning from Albania to Madras - including Russia. It has nothing to do with Americans - it was in India before the Brits arrived and it's still there.

[ggobkk]

I was in Jomtien Complex last week...I suggest you start with either @Home or Your Place bars.  They are at the Venue Hotel and Show Room area of the complex.  Most of the boys were Cambodian.  

[ggobkk]

For what it's worth, from today's Wall Street Journal's compendium of apps for travel.  

 

GETTING TIPSY GlobeTips

European restaurant workers are nuts about travelers from the U.S., said Anton Anisimov, co-founder of GlobeTips, since Americans have a reliable tendency to overtip abroad. His app helps visitors avoid inadvertently excessive generosity by cataloging gratuity practices in more than 200 countries and regions. If you’re just an armchair tipper, you can poke around the app’s atlas to learn, say, what to give a porter in Tunisia or a taxi driver in El Salvador. For those who are sweating over an unintelligible bill just dropped at the table, a built-in receipt scanner checks the phone’s GPS before pulling the local gratuity guidelines into its calculator. The calculator then clearly spells out what, if anything, should be left behind. globe.studio/globetipping

I

 

[ggobkk]

I downloaded the above app (it has a free level and for extra $$ will elaborate with background (e.g. In Thailand to ask or hint for a tip is considered rude).

 

Here is what the free part says about Thailand : Restaurant 10% or round up if no service charge.  Porter 20 to 50 baht.  Taxi - no tip or round up.

[paborn]

I downloaded the above app (it has a free level and for extra $$ will elaborate with background (e.g. In Thailand to ask or hint for a tip is considered rude).

 

 

 

My friend, the designer of that app has never been in a Go-Go bar in Thailand.  Rude???  Just adorable.

[a447a]

Vinapu wrote:

 

"...paying a bit more than price list creates a lot of good will..."

 

That sums up the purpose of tips in a nutshell.

[PeterRS]

I learnt the importance of tipping when I first went to Hong Kong. I was staying at a very nice hotel and was expecting Japanese-like service.

 

When the bellboy brought my luggage into the foyer I noticed he was hovering next to me. Did he wasn't to have a chat? I just thanked him and left it at that. When he'd brought my luggage up to my room the same thing happened - it seemed like he didn't want to leave. I started having naughty thoughts; was he looking for a bit of fun?

 

Later in the day, as I was leaving the hotel he did not open the door for me. No greeting. No smile. Nothing.

 

The next day I went down for breakfast. Everything was fine. But the next morning the waiters totally ignored me! Nobody greeted me or brought me over a cup of coffee like they had the day before. I looked around and noticed that everyone else was being pampered and fawned over, but here was me, sitting all alone.

 

I later commented to another guest, complaining how rude the staff were.

 

"Maybe your tip wasn't enough."

 

"Tip? What tip? I didn't leave one."

 

"Well, what do you expect??"

 

So the next day I started throwing money around like a drunken sailor. And it worked like a charm! Suddenly I had changed into a VIP and the staff couldn't do enough for me. I was treated like royalty.

 

Great story. I once had a rich client who always stayed in top hotels. He told me his policy always was to tip the head concierge and the room boy as soon as he arrived, not at the end of his stay. He said he never once had anything other than great service!

 

Tipping is the one reason why I dislike the USA. Paborn mentions tipping started in England. I frankly do not care where it started because it clearly crossed the Atlantic at some point and it is in the USA where it has gotten so totally out of hand. 20% to 25% to a restaurant waiter? To me that is a kind of madness. Sure I realise the tips are so high because the restaurant owners are such mean bastards they will not pay their staff a living wage. My answer to that is how come they will not pay wait staff but they seem perfectly happy to pay all the kitchen staff better wages?

 

Same in hotels. Why am I expected to tip the room cleaners? With rare exceptions I leave my room very tidy. I hardly ever see these ladies and they probably spend no more than 5 minutes in my room. 

 

But if tipping originated in England, who brought the tipping syndrome to most other parts of the world? Unquestionably Americans! Because they are used to it at home, they exported the habit and now it is expected almost everywhere. Want to see a world without tipping? As z909 says in an earlier post, take a trip to Japan. There they not only do not tip, they are offended if you offer one.

 

Here in Thailand there has grown this expectation in the major cities that tipping is expected. Perhaps the Vietnam War and all those GIs flooding into the country on their R&R and happy to splash the cash are to blame. 

 

As for me, in the bars in Thailand I tip roughly what I believe to be the going rate, although I never really check what that is. If I have a great time, the tip reflects that. If it is not so great, the tip is less but still good. After all the boys have to make a living and it is not their fault if I pick a dud. That is as much my fault as it is his. Some will consider this the fault of the mamasan for not telling this guy was a dud. Huh? The mamasans duty is to the bar owner first. He may seem all smarmy and helpful to me as the customer. But he knows he is unlikely to see 95% or more of the customers again. So do I expect him to be an honest broker?  Nope.

 

We also have to face facts. Tipping a gogo boy is not a tip. It is a fee for prostitution wrapped up in the fiction of a tip. So bar boys are a bit like waiters in the USA. They cannot live on what the bar pays them so the customer has to pay. It is sometimes a rather curious conundrum. Why are some posters reasonably happy to splash out a 20% tip in a Dallas restaurant but resent giving a decent tip to a bar boy? 4 people dining in a decent restaurant with a bottle of decent wine in the US is likely to result in a tip of $60-70. Funny. Isnt that about the going rate for an off?

 

As for what others tip, I really could care less. 

[witty]

+1

PeterRS, you're a breath of fresh air.

[Guest]

Here is enlightenment for people who like to pretend to have any knowledge of tipping in restaurants in the USA.

 

The vast majority of the states, wait people  are paid $2.13 an hour and the tips have to bring their hourly wages up to the minimum wage in that state which as you can see is not even close to a living wage . Anyone who mentions that wait people should be paid a living wage like people in the kitchen is truly ignorant. Most of the people in the kitchen are paid minimum wage which is not a living wage and except in certain restaurants do not share in any tips left and thus are far worse off then most wait staff.  Certainly this applies to maids and bell hops etc . Their wages are not particularly high and tips are appreciated .

 

Also having spent hundreds of nights in Dallas it would be quite unusual to have a bill for a group of 4 to be $350 unless it was an expense account dinner and then the person paying the bill should have no complaint.( not costing him a penny) Not to say a special occasion once in a while might happen where I might actually pay that amount. ( After all it is a Special Occasion)

 

Also the first thing I do when visiting a country for the first time is look up what accepted tipping practices are in that country and then try to stick to those accepted practices. That is not to say that some may not and thus tip when not required or expected.

 

Is that any different then when people who visit USA fail to realize that tips are expected and unlike their home country are not either added to the bill in the form of a service charge or prices. I think not!

 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

[Guest]

Also the first thing I do when visiting a country for the first time is look up what accepted tipping practices are in that country and then try to stick to those accepted practices. That is not to say that some may not and thus tip when not required or expected.

 

That's a good strategy. 

 

Being aware of tipping practices is much better than running into trouble by not tipping in the US or conversely, going around chiding others because they do not follow US tipping practices in Thailand.

 

Although, it must be said I prefer the model where restaurants, hotels etc include everything in the core price with no add ons and no expectations of tips, however, of course preferences don't count for much and I need to adapt to the customs where I am.

 

 

We also have to face facts. Tipping a gogo boy is not a tip. It is a fee for prostitution wrapped up in the fiction of a tip. . 

In countries where prostitution is illegal, there are good reasons for this particular piece of fiction.  Also, it's the ONLY method of payment for the service, so it's of course very fair to tip.  

That's quite different to other scenarios, such as hotel cleaning, which is already paid for in the bill and usually requires no tip according to local custom.

[DivineMadman]

 

Being aware of tipping practices is much better than running into trouble by not tipping in the US or conversely, going around chiding others because they do not follow US tipping practices in Thailand.

 

Once again, the places we have been talking in Thailand do tip.  I didn't think there was anyone who denied that in the touristy party of Bangkok (etc.), gay or straight, tipping has become customary.  But do tell the waiter at Maxi's or Balcony Bar, "I'm not going to tip you because I know it's not customary here."  If you're comfortable leaving without a tip, presumably you would also be comfortable telling the waiter that to his face, no?

[paborn]

Dear PeterRS:

"But if tipping originated in England, who brought the tipping syndrome to most other parts of the world? Unquestionably Americans! Because they are used to it at home, they exported the habit and now it is expected almost everywhere. Want to see a world without tipping? As z909 says in an earlier post, take a trip to Japan. There they not only do not tip, they are offended if you offer one."

 

1. In point of fact, tipping was spread by the British Empire. The Brits were in decline by the time American bases and power began to spread. The Brits brought it to America and spread it. I do not say this to lay blame, on the Brits - it's just a fact. Yes, the custom has declined in the UK - they tip but not as much as the US. The system is very different. Do not, however, judge today and then interpolate that back to origins.

 

2. The AMERICANS opened up Japan to trade, occupied Japan after WW2 and dictated their new constitution. ???? My goodness - there is no tipping. The ugly Americans failed to impose their evil way - distressing.

[Guest]

Sick of hearing about Japan has no tipping. It is true and what everyone forgets is they pay their workers a living wage and thus no need for tipping and of course those wages are reflected in the price that visitors pay. Same as in many countries that add a service charge and if the service sucks you still pay. At least if the service sucks in the US , I can reflect it with my tip.

 

While I'm at it , I am not sure if it was approved from earlier this year but the Minimum Wage in Thailand was raised in 2 Provinces to 330 baht per day .

 

I would love to see any member including our most famous penny pincher survive on 330 baht per day. Most of the Gay Bars in BKK charge more then that for 1 drink and just about every Member of this Board who has visited Thailand has paid 330 baht or more for a soda, drink etc. in one of those Bars.

[vinapu]

 

2. The AMERICANS opened up Japan to trade, occupied Japan after WW2 and dictated their new constitution. ???? My goodness - there is no tipping. The ugly Americans failed to impose their evil way - distressing.

it only shows that at end of day military might succumbs to strong culture 

 

 

 But do tell the waiter at Maxi's or Balcony Bar, "I'm not going to tip you because I know it's not customary here."  If you're comfortable leaving without a tip, presumably you would also be comfortable telling the waiter that to his face, no?

isn't it easier just pay price from the invoice only  without an announcement about not tipping ?

[vinapu]

 

Also the first thing I do when visiting a country for the first time is look up what accepted tipping practices are in that country and then try to stick to those accepted practices. 

 

 

 / my underscore / 

 

Really ?,  this would support theory about religious devotion to tipping.

 

When visiting first time  first thing for me would  rather be checking how to get from airport to my hotel, best places to exchange money  and then  opening hours, admission price and way how to get to that place's most acclaimed attractions.

 

I already mentioned it earlier , this discussion becomes too heated for what is worth and yes , I do tip but it's more afterthought that matter of doctoral thesis for me.