Motorcycle wash

I been to this place a few times, copy paste this into google maps
8 Đường số 41, Tân Phong, Quận 7, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

Mini cafe, you can have a drink while you wait.
20.000 and I give the kid a tip.

gobot wrote:

20.000 and I give the kid a tip.

With such small amounts it is not easy to tip the right amount.

VND 20k for a motorcycle to wash, 30k for hair to cut or 50k for a flat car tire to repair.  There you are quickly about to tip 50 or 100%.

I wonder if people feel offended or disrespectful when you give 50 or 100% tip.

I have had the feeling a few times that people react rather incomprehensibly.

I try my best not to tip more than 10 or 20%.  But at 20k, 2k already look a little pathetic.

Tipping is rather odd in Vietnam.  Nobody tips waiters or waitresses but my wife told me that I should tip the mechanic at the Honda shop, which probably pays relatively good wages.  At the bike wash place I used, i didn't always tip the dad but I always tipped the son about 10K.

Thanks, i will check it out

on tipping, being British its not in our society or culture to tip or leave a "gratuity"  unless travelling to countries where its a given, such as the US. In VN I always leave the small change, anything under 20K. % rules are kinda meaningless for us Brits. if he charges 20K then i would probably give him 30 or 40. things are relative, in the UK a bike wash would cost me about 200K, in China about 100K so 20K is nothing.

THIGV wrote:

Tipping is rather odd in Vietnam.  Nobody tips waiters or waitresses but my wife told me that I should tip the mechanic at the Honda shop, which probably pays relatively good wages.  At the bike wash place I used, i didn't always tip the dad but I always tipped the son about 10K.

Many people these days tip waiters and waitresses, usually at a restaurant, not at a cafe.

I was confused too because my wife, from poor family, said she never tips. So I stopped, because I didn't want to embarrass anyone. Then it turns out she gives the hairdresser like 50%, she gave the motorbike washer 10k, and even taxis we will often round up a bit, especially if she has spent the whole trip interrogating him about his life, income, and government policy.

gobot wrote:

I was confused too because my wife, from poor family, said she never tips. So I stopped, because I didn't want to embarrass anyone. Then it turns out she gives the hairdresser like 50%, she gave the motorbike washer 10k, and even taxis we will often round up a bit, especially if she has spent the whole trip interrogating him about his life, income, and government policy.

My gf never tips anyplace, though there is one exception, but I don't remember what it was.

The few times I have tipped, I got strange reactions, so I pretty don't anymore.
But them I live in Binh Tan, as opposed to those places with a lot of tourists, so the local expect a tip.

Which is about the same in Italy or Germany. the tourist places expect tips, but the local places don't., other than rounding the bill up to the nearest Euro.

i will add that at the local level, we go to a big beer place that has the best Hot Pot.  While we don't tip there, if the bill is 499k, we get our 1k change, my GF says that a the tables with the drunk men, they tip a lot because they are drinking a lot AND the waitresses are extra friendly.

So tipping can be perceived as a thank you for getting something extra, not professional. Thus why I think I've gotten bad reactions.

In the past when we only used taxis, my wife often agreed with the taxi driver that the driver was waiting for us to drive back (sometimes up to 2 hours while we were e.g. in the clinic for the pregnancy examination).  Or when we were with her parents in Long An.  The driver then took a nap in the taxi, or he was invited by her parents for food.
Then we already gave 50 to 100k tip after he brought us back.

gobot wrote:

Then it turns out she gives the hairdresser like 50%, she gave the motorbike washer 10k, and even taxis we will often round up a bit, especially if she has spent the whole trip interrogating him about his life, income, and government policy.

Me too.  I do the same thing to all taxi drivers, and was told by them that they DO like to be asked.  I now know everything the drivers know about the ins and outs of Uber and Grab, the exams, the daily burden, the treatment of their drivers, the financial procedures, etc.  From the cab and shuttle drivers, I've learned of their struggle, their social hangouts, their habits, their wishes and dreams.  They also shared with me the dos and don'ts of everything under the sun, the bedside manners and reputation for being "mát tay" * of the doctors in Saigon and VT, the hospitals' success and failure stories, etc. 

Against all advices, we still tip almost everyone who provides us a service unless the service is rotten.  Taxi, Grab (and up to earlier this year, Uber) drivers are the ones who receive the biggest tips from us, after hairdressers. 

Hairdressers in every country deserve as much tips as one can afford, because a good hairdresser is worth his/her weight in gold.

*Mát tay:  Literally translated as "cool hand".  Similar to a gardener's green thumb, a doctor's "cool hand" is the giftedness that results to 100% success with his patients even though he prescribes the same meds and treatments as other doctors do.

just next to Lotte Mart