The tipping taboo
给小费的禁忌

It’s nice to go out for a meal at a restaurant. But what makes it extra special – apart from the food - is to receive attentive service from the staff. What can leave a bad taste in your mouth, though,is to be handed the bill and see that a service charge has been added. You’re faced with the dilemma of deciding to pay it, and whether you should add a tip on top.

去餐馆吃顿饭是很愉快的。但是，除了食物之外，酒店的特别之处在于，员工们会为你提供周到的服务。然而，当你拿到账单时，却发现账单上增加了服务费，这可能会给你留下不好的印象。你面临着一个两难的选择:是付还是不付?

Putting your hand in your pocket to reward good service is a personal choice, but it also depends on where you are in the world. What is the norm in one city is not necessarily the norm in another. In some places a tip is expected; but in others, good service should be expected and ought to be included in the price.

为优质的服务付小费是个人选择，但它也取决于你在世界上的什么地方。一个城市的标准并不一定适合另一个城市。在一些地方，小费是必要的;但在其他地方，良好的服务是理所应当的，并且已经包含在了餐费中。

Adding an optional service charge to your bill certainly makes paying a tip less awkward because there’s no need to calculate the amount. But even though it’s not compulsory, you sometimes feel obliged to pay it. In the UK, where people tend to be too polite to complain, they might pay the service charge despite quietly complaining that the service they received was not up to scratch!

在你的账单上增加一项可选的服务费用，当然会使付小费变得不那么尴尬，因为不需要计算金额。但即使不是强制性的，有时你也会觉得有义务去支付。在英国，人们往往很有礼貌，不会抱怨，他们可能会支付服务费，尽管他们会悄悄抱怨他们得到的服务不合格!

Choosing your own amount to tip may seem fairer, but should you pay it in cash or add it on to a credit card payment? And who will be the recipient? If we are to pay extra, we want to know it goes to the person who deserves it and that it’s not used as an alternative to paying someone a proper wage. In the UK in 2009, the law was changed after an outcry over staff being paid under the minimum wage and then topping up their wages with money they had earned in tips.

选择自己的小费金额似乎更公平，但你应该用现金支付还是用信用卡支付呢?应该付给谁呢?如果我们要付额外的钱，我们想知道这笔钱是给那个应得的人的，而不是用来代替付给别人适当的工资。2009年，英国修改了这项法律，原因是企业付给员工低于最低标准的工资，然后用他们赚来的小费来补足工资的做法遭到了强烈抗议。

However, in the US it’s still customary to leave a gratuity because tips often make up a substantial part of a server’s income. Restaurant owner William Beckett told the BBC that in New York, for example, “There’s a tacit pressure to tip. But theoretically you (could) just stand up and walk out. You don’t. Everybody tips 20%.”

然而，在美国，给小费仍是司空见惯的事，因为小费通常占服务员收入的一大部分。餐馆老板威廉·贝克特告诉BBC，例如，在纽约，“有一种隐性的给小费的压力。但是理论上你可以站起来然后走掉。你不会的。每个人都建议给20%的小费。”

Maybe we should follow Japan’s approach, where tipping under any circumstance may seem rude because good service is standard and expected. Elsewhere, there are calls for restaurants to replace the tipping system with a so-called 'hospitality-included' charge – a single payment which covers both the meal and the service. This basically means, don’t tip - the price you see on the menu reflects the full cost of dining. That might make receiving the final bill easier to swallow!