Taiwan : The no-tipping culture | Fili’s World

24 Sep, 2008 in Cross culture, Israel, Taiwan by Fili

Taiwan : The no-tipping culture

One of the first positive culture shocks I encountered in Taiwan had to do with restaurant culture. Everyone eats out, all the time, with an endless variety of restaurants of all kinds, ranging from street dirt-cheap to the most expensive 5 star restaurants (at least in Taipei, in Tainan they’re a little bit harder to find). The way food is being ordered and how you pay for your food was a complete revolution in my way of thinking.

Israel? Here’s a sign I saw today on an Israeli blog - Room404.

It reads : “Hungry? going out for lunch? great! bon appetite. Just don’t forget to leave a tip to the person that served you (at least 10%). Just so you know, the waiters’ wages depends on your generosity. Have a good day and thanks for your attention”.

That pretty much sums how things are when it comes to tipping in Israel. Waiters get paid minimum wage, sometimes not even that, and their whole income depends on the tips they get. It used to be 10% but now if you tip under 12-15% you’re being frowned upon. In this case, the ad was posted in the hi-tech silicon valley area and I think it was meant especially for those who have company coupons for lunch. Yeah, even if your company is paying for your lunch, you’re still expected to tip the waiter. Restaurants in Israel are way more expensive than in Taiwan, but we won’t go into that. Having to tip at least 10% more makes that difference even bigger. I’ll even go as far as saying that for the tip you give in Israel you’ll probably get a decent full-meal in Taiwan. True, in some high-end places in Taiwan a 5-10% tip would be appreciated, but that depends on your satisfaction with the service. If you didn’t like the service in Israel and you didn’t tip, your friends would think your cheap and the waiter would spend the rest of the week telling all his/her friends about the man who didn’t tip without thinking what it was he/she did to deserve not getting a tip. I’m always amazed at the high level of service I get from mid-class restaurants in Taiwan (saying welcome and goodbye, filling the water in your glass, checking that you’re okay), and amazed by the level of annoying nonchalant unfriendliness I get in mid-class restaurants in Israel.

Home delivery is the same. My mom kept giving 20-30 shekels to the delivery boys who carried stuff from the near-by grocery store – 1 block away, which goes beyond the delivery fare she gave the grocery store for about the same amount. It doesn’t matter the the whole delivery could be less than 500 shekels. When she failed to present such a generous tip, the delivery boys would actually made their dissatisfaction known. Fast food is the same. When I was about to tip the Burger King guy in Taiwan (forgive me father, for I have sinned), my Taiwanese friend asked me what I was doing, and when I say I was going to tip the guy, he took the money from my hand and said – don’t need to, it’s his job. Aha. Makes perfect sense to me, so how come it’s different in Israel?

(Just thought of mentioning one of the comments on that Israeli post - “Here’s a tip for you – don’t use that many font styles and sizes in one banner”. :D)

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9 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

Todd | September 24th, 2008 at 8:34 pm #

Service here is mediocre at best, even the places that tack on a service charge usually don’t pull it off well.
Fili | September 24th, 2008 at 8:42 pm #

Todd - I disagree, but would be happy to hear about examples. Maybe we’re used to different standards, but I’ve been around a few places.
I’ll give you another example - fixing my ex-ASUS computer was almost impossibly difficult in both London and Israel, they made all possible efforts to make me feel little, while the ASUS branch here in Tainan took good care of me while I waited and fixed my issue without asking me anything in less than 10 minutes. Same goes for HP. Same goes for my ARC (that’s a story by itself), my scooter license, clothing, and the list goes on.
Amy P. | September 25th, 2008 at 9:36 pm #

You have to tip fast food workers too? That’s about the only exception we have here in America. Barristas working at the coffee shops put out a tip jar, and sometimes I’ll put my change in there, but these two are the only examples where tipping is not customary. I still tipped when I lived in Thailand (similar to Taiwan in tipping culture) but it was far less than what is expected in the USA.
Todd | September 25th, 2008 at 9:46 pm #

I should have specified food service. I find it quite annoying that a waiter or waitress here can wait for any amount of time next to your time while you contemplate your order but cannot return a single time after he or she sets down your food to clear any obviously finished dishes until after you leave.
Anonymous | September 25th, 2008 at 11:02 pm #

Todd, you are really funny XD!! You can be a little mean to tell them to clear finished dishes if you are not happy…I am sure they will!!
Fili | September 26th, 2008 at 6:21 am #

Todd - Weird. If anything, I sometimes have the opposite problem - with them repeatedly asking me if they could take the dishes away even when it’s clear I’m not done and am just having a conversation, or insisting to fill up the water even if I only took a sip (there’s something against water jars in Taiwan, right?).
Todd | September 27th, 2008 at 11:42 pm #

There was a big Soundoff awhile ago on MJ’s blog about servers in Taiwan. I think all the points there should adequately illustrate how I (and many others) feel about servers in Taiwan.
Ashish | October 9th, 2008 at 12:48 pm #

Hi Fili, I had the same culture shock 3 yrs back when I first arrived in Taiwan. I wasn’t sure how much to tip hence ended up giving 50 NT$ for a 260 NT$ meal thats almost 20% :O About the waiting service I have had the similar experiences as yours. I usually end up drinking water way more than I would naturally need lol. And most of the times if they stand besides waiting for me to order, a polite request for 2 mins to take a look at menu is suffice for them to give me my space and time to choose. They come back after 2 mins. I still haven’t had a single bad experience while dining out so far here in 3 years.
BTW the new layout of this blog rocks. Sorry if I haven’t stopped by in last couple of months. love the way that top navigation bar shows me a little preview without actually reloading the whole page. Nice work.
Fili | October 9th, 2008 at 1:33 pm #

Ashish - thanks, that’s nice to hear. I think the major difference between you-me and Todd is where we come from and our expectations of what service is. It’s interested to see how different people and perhaps different cultures are sensitive to different aspects of service.

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