tipping

so, last week i was out with some friends and our check arrived....we figured out who owed what and gave the waiter our cash....the change was $5....now the check was $35.00 and one person was paying with their debit card....she left a $2 tip on her card for her part of the check....the $5 change came as a $5 bill....no singles, just a 5....this annoyed me, because to me the waiter was making the assumption that we were going to leave him a $7 tip....now our bill was for 6 glasses of wine...and the waiter wasn't that great, definately not deserving of a 20%+ tip...

this made me think of a little story from viet nam....(i know you are surprised).  lesley and i decided to get a foot massage in hanoi....we had been walking around all day and the massage was $4 for 1/2 hour...a bargin- right?  so during the massage my massager kept telling me how beautiful i was and how white my skin was....i told her it was winter back home, which is why my skin was so white...little did i know she was admiring my white skin and wishing her's was white too...when the massage was over it was time to tip our two ladies...they had done an excellent job....when we first arrived in viet nam our guide had told us we should tip about 10%....so, we decided to give them $2 each...i handed my lady her tip and she said to me, "no-this is not enough"- i was thrown off....what did she mean not enough?  i had paid for the massage already, so why wasn't the tip enough?  i was confused....lesley's lady said the same thing to her....so, we looked at them and then at each other- what now?

now, at this point i felt like we had two options- give them more money and leave quietly or refuse to give them more money and maybe not get out of the place at all....i told lesley we should just give them the money....there was no way i wanted to start trouble...so, we handed them each another dollar- which still wasn't enough...so the tip ended up being $4....that's right- they each got a 100% tip...

later we asked our guide about this and he said that custom is to give hairdressers and massagers a 50% tip....he did say that people in his country are forward about that....he also let us know that in most restaurants you don't leave a tip and some waiters take it as an insult....the whole tipping thing was confusing, but for the rest of the trip- the people who gave me manicures, massages, and gave me the best hair washing i've ever had got a 50% tip....