Tipping is Not a City in China

While stupidity has been widely associated with blondes and Bush, I've been coming across all kinds of evidence that it is an innate gene in waiters/waitresses. It seems to me that a lot of restaurants in Hong Kong (those I've been visiting anyway) either do not bother to provide proper training to their staff or support creativity as the way of life and let their employees run wild with their imagination as to what quality service (or decent service for that matter) entails.

Here's a condensed list of my personal experience to support this point of view:

(Some time during a meal at a Shanghainese restaurant)
Friend: Can we get a spoon please?
Waitress: What do you need a spoon for?

(While ordering at another Shanghainese restaurant)
Me: How big is a serving of this dish?
Waitress: It's served in a large bowl, like those you use at home.
Me (pointing to friends): My home or her home or his home?
Waitress (embarrassed, scans around the room. Facing the direction of several occupied tables, not pointing at any): Like that one at table 15.

(While ordering at a Japanese restaurant)
Friend: We'd also like two orders of uni sushi.
Waitress: What is uni?

(At an Irish pub, after a waitress messes up our orders twice, a waiter offers to clear things up)
Waiter: What did this lady order?
Friend: Whiskey and coke.
Waiter: Ok, so rum and coke it is.
All of us: WHIS-KEY and coke.
Waiter: Yes. Yes.
(Waiter picks up an empty plate from our table)
Waiter: Ok, so it's a vodka and coke.
All of us: Vodka and coke???
Friend: Whiskey and coke.
Waiter: I see. Sorry, because the waitress wrote down the letter "V" here.

You'd think things would be better at pricier places.

Just yesterday, I had yum cha with my mother and grandmother at supposedly one of the most prestigious Chinese restaurants in my neighborhood. At the end of the meal, I gestured a waitress for the bill. While waiting, I laid out my big wallet on the table in front of myself. The waitress came back with the bill, walked to the other side of the table and gave it to my mom. I gestured her to come over to my side then paid cash for the bill.

For those of you not familiar with the idea, a 10-15% service charge is included in the bill at all restaurants in Hong Kong where tipping is "required" and as such no additional tipping is expected on top of the grand total printed on the bill. And tipping would be considered peculiar at places where that service charge is not billed to you. As harsh as I sound in this article I often feel I should tip even when it's not expected and have been a generous tipper most of the time. But when the waitress came back with the change and handed it to my mom again, I picked up each and every dollar and gave her a better-luck-next-time shrug.