do you split a bill?

[zozzen]

When you hang out with your local friends, do you split a bill?

After staying in the mainland China for a few months, i still find it strange to treat or to be treated. When i give money back to my local friends, many of them looks very surprised. "你怎麼啦? 你怎麼啦?" The elder they are, the more surprises they show me.

To my surprise, yesterday when i hanged out with a british who stayed in China for a decade, he paid the bill, and refused to take my money back. Do you think you'll lose friends if you always insist to split the bill in china?

[roddy]

Would never, eating with local Chinese, expect to split the bill there and then. Either someone pays as it's 'their treat' or sometimes (rarely, I think) its been prearranged that this is 'AA' and in that case you pay back whoever paid later. But I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese group take the money out at the table, make change, argue over who had that extra bottle of beer, etc, in the way that foreign groups will. Maybe with say, a group of colleagues having lunch together regularly, but even then it would be handled a lot more subtly.

I certainly find it a bit odd when people do the whole splitting the bill thing there and then, and will often just give the waitress enough to cover it so she doesn't need to stand there looking bemused while everyone does the maths. You can often make a tidy profit that way, collecting 50Y notes for a 42Y per head dinner (sh)

Buy meals back in return, or just say thanks, is likely all that is expected.

[zozzen]

Would never, eating with local Chinese, expect to split the bill there and then. Either someone pays as it's 'their treat' or sometimes (rarely, I think) its been prearranged that this is 'AA' and in that case you pay back whoever paid later. But I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese group take the money out at the table, make change, argue over who had that extra bottle of beer, etc, in the way that foreign groups will. Maybe with say, a group of colleagues having lunch together regularly, but even then it would be handled a lot more subtly.

I certainly find it a bit odd when people do the whole splitting the bill thing there and then, and will often just give the waitress enough to cover it so she doesn't need to stand there looking bemused while everyone does the maths. You can often make a tidy profit that way, collecting 50Y notes for a 42Y per head dinner

oh no i don't want these profit. Though splitting the bill isn't really a chinese way, there's still a manner on that. My friends often declines a change when splitting the bill. For 42Y per head, they never take 50, but 40 only. And making profit from splitting the bill will surely make that guy become a target in a small talk and he'll be described as penny-pinching, greedy. Cost vs. benefit doesn't match.

[simonlaing]

I think it depends.

if you say when or just before the bill comes let's go AA zhi. (split the bill) and you're with some chinese friends (espicially young friends or students in university) they will understand.

if it is at all formal, involves a boss, you're the only westerner or it was hosted by a chinese person usually some one will treat.

I and a couple of friends get annoyed and the few friends who always try to pay the bill.

We can deal with taking turns paying the bill and buying drinkings but to not allow reciprocity is annoying.

I think splitting the bill is the best way to go but you have to read the situation .

have fun,

SimoN:)

p.s. the south might be slightly different from the north (as it is closer to beijing nad there are more politicians and SOEs there.)

[Lu]

I usually do. Eating out here is usually with each their own plate with their own meal, and when we pay we just look up who had what, or tell the waitress we want to fenkai fu. Or if it is a Chinese style meal with dishes everyone eats from, we split the bill. So far, I haven't lost any friends over it :-) It seems to be normal here, at least among friends who are equals.

I always feel guilty when others pay for me, am still not used to that.

[imron]

When eating with colleagues at lunch, everyone pays for what they had. When eating with friends it's almost always one person treating the others.

[tony1343]

If you do split the bill in China, I would imagine there would be less arguments than in the U.S. You can just divide the bill by how many people there are.

In the U.S., since everyone orders on their own, everyone's meal costs a different amount. Then you have to add tax, which is never included as it appears to be in Europe and China (I'm guessing they have sometype of tax, but maybe not). Then you have to add tip/gratuity for the waiter/waitress (which you don't do in China and maybe not Europe, at least not Italy).

In the end, somebody always ends up shorting you. Usually its by accident, though sometimes you wonder with some people. To add to this complexity, it is less and less common in the U.S. to actually carry cash. So everyone wants to pay with credit card, making it even more confusing on the waiter/ress, since she has to scan x credit cards all for different dollar amounts.

Luckily, many restaurants now (and the trend is more and more every year) either automatically split up the bill by seat or will provide separate checks for each person if requested. This saves time and avoids the arguments and confusion.

I still definitely prefer the western style of ordering your own meal. I got quite sick of having to eat food that I didn't really like that much when I was in China. Of course, since I can't read Chinese, I'd let someone else order for me anyway.

[Senzhi]

I'm lucky: in my (Belgian) culture, splitting the bill is only accepted by students or by people who are on a low income.

In general, we like to treat and be treated (in turns, but not necessarily so). And I'm very happy to see the Chinese like it the same way.

[Lu]

Then you have to add tax, which is never included as it appears to be in Europe and China (I'm guessing they have some type of tax, but maybe not).

Shops, and I think restaurants too, in Holland (and other countries too I think) have the tax already included in the price you see on the menu. Which in my opinion is infinitely more convenient for all parties concerned than having to add it up afterwards, and it also means that the price you see on the menu is the price you will pay. No extras here and extras there.

Some places in China and Taiwan also put in small script under the menu: 10% service charge is added. Then why not just add it to the price I see already, so that I don't have any surprises when I pay.

[imron]

Shops, and I think restaurants too, in Holland (and other countries too I think) have the tax already included in the price you see on the menu.

I once asked this question to an American friend about why this was the case when surely it was more sensible just to include everything into the total, and was told that 1) some restaurants like to let people know just how much the government is taking from them, and this gives people a much more concrete understanding than just writing "10% tax included" and 2) It helps with general math skills.

[gougou]

In the case of a service charge, I believe it is to show how much will go to the wait staff. There is one restaurant in Beijing which mentioned explicitly that 100% of the markup go directly to the wait staff, which made me a lot more willing to pay it. Nice marketing!

[LaoZhang]

Depends on who you're with, really. In my experience, people of a higher status have always paid. Among friends (same age or a little older), we'll take turns, though we always fight over it but threaten not to go out together again if "they don't allow the other to pay next time." And who's event is it? If you were invited, don't worry, but do offer to pay. If you're the inviter, then you should pay. But with the younger students (college aged) going dutch is very common. I would avoid exchanging money at the restaurant or in front of important Chinese guests. If a few foreign friends want to all treat some Chinese to a meal, the foreign friends can settle the balance when not in the presence of the guests.

[Luobot]

Then why not just add it to the price I see already, so that I don't have any surprises when I pay.

I once asked this question to an American friend about why this was the case when surely it was more sensible just to include everything into the total, and was told that 1) some restaurants like to let people know just how much the government is taking from them, and this gives people a much more concrete understanding than just writing "10% tax included" and 2) It helps with general math skills.

1 – When customers see the full price in advance, customers sometimes make lower cost selections than they otherwise would have, so the "good' business prefers to pretend that they’re doing you a favor by withholding this information.

2 – In the US, quite frequently the sales tax is kept by the business, whether legally or not. Tax is sometimes overcharged. It’s money in the pocket. Small amounts add up. Another trick in NY is that the service person knows most customers will simply double the tax to calculate the tip. So the higher the tax, the more their tip is likely to be. And for customers who calculate the tip by applying a percentage to the bill, they frequently make the mistake of calculating it on the total amount, after the tax has been added in. So, again, the higher the tax, the higher the tip.

3 – If a gratuity percentage is added to the bill, it’s made as unobvious as possible to improve the likelihood that customers will add their own tip on top of the gratuity, as many will think that they’re still supposed to tip, even after they’ve already been held upside down by their feet and shaken like a Heinz ketchup bottle.

China is better.

[Lu]

1) some restaurants like to let people know just how much the government is taking from them, and this gives people a much more concrete understanding than just writing "10% tax included" and 2) It helps with general math skills

1) I always suspected it was something like that! Seems to fit the American spirit so well, of not wanting the government to interfere with your life.

2) So does it? Are Americans better at math than Europeans, and Europeans, who still have to calculate 10-15% for the tip, better than Asians?

[tony1343]

I have no idea why tax is not included. It is very annoying. There are limited cases where it is included, and that is at sporting events and probably some other events. I'm guessing the main reason is so that the store can label the product with as low of a price as possible. Marketing is very obnoxious like that. Also, the sales tax rate in each state (and even each individual county sometimes) is different. My home has a 6.x% rate (and 3.x% on food but only for food eaten off the premises), while the city where I go to graduate school tax's at 9.5% (it has no local income tax though - thus screwing over poor people to some extent). So not including the tax rate might make it easier on national chains in that they don't have to explain to dumb people why their prices are different everywhere.

Gas stations label the cost of a gallon (sorry that we don't use the metric system yet, that is also annoying; though I find the degrees on celsius to be too close together) as $2.88 9/10. Labeling something as 9/10 of a cent when the smallest unit of currency is $.01 should probably be illegal. There is a historical reason for this I believe though.

I'm a student, so my experience with splitting the bill might be biased. However, students typically split the bill, co-workers at lunch split the bill, and my family always splits the bill (I always eat at restaurants with aunts, uncles and children, so the bill is split by each individual family).

However, I think once you start working fulltime and you go out to eat with friends, it becomes more common to alternate paying for the bill. This is probably true for couples that go to dinner together. This might depend upon location too; not really sure.

[tony1343]

Americans are definitely not better at math than Europeans. We pretty much always do terrible in test scores K-12. Though I hear that some Europeans like to only test their smart students, while we test the smart down to the dumb. Not an excuse though for the piss poor results. Luckily, our universities appear to do a much better job (of course not everyone can go though).

Plus you always just estimate the gratuity. I always overestimate, though some cheap people will leave a smaller tip.

Do people in the Netherlands typically split? Why is it called going Dutch in English when you split the bill (or actually I think that term is more commonly used when on a date the woman pays for herself)?

Just doubling the the tax is definitely not common where I live. That would completely short change the waiting staff. Maybe that's because where I live the tax rate is lower. It is common to leave 15-20% after tax. Doubling the sales tax would be 13% before sales tax is added. So maybe this depends upon where you live.

[skylee]

Plus you always just estimate the gratuity. I always overestimate, though some cheap people will leave a smaller tip.

What does this mean?

[imron]

It means that even though you are expected to pay a certain percentage as a tip, the actual amount still comes down to the discretion of the individual customer. Rather than going through the trouble of calculating the tip based on some percentage, some people will just approximate how much it will be. However some people are 小气 and if that's the case, they might estimate this amount to be less, rather than more.

[Luobot]

Just doubling the the tax is definitely not common where I live. That would completely short change the waiting staff. Maybe that's because where I live the tax rate is lower. It is common to leave 15-20% after tax. Doubling the sales tax would be 13% before sales tax is added. So maybe this depends upon where you live.

I was talking about NYC, where the sales tax is more than 8.5%, even for toilet paper. They tax your butt off here, literally.

Why is it called going Dutch

Discussed a bit here.

[skylee]

It means that even though you are expected to pay a certain percentage as a tip, the actual amount still comes down to the discretion of the individual customer. Rather than going through the trouble of calculating the tip based on some percentage, some people will just approximate how much it will be. However some people are 小气 and if that's the case, they might estimate this amount to be less, rather than more.

"Expected", and if you pay less you are cheap or 小器. So actually it is kind of compulsory, right? Then why is it not included in the bill? (Here in HK 10% service charge is almost always included in the bill.) Or are people expected to tip on top of the service charge?