I’m in Aotearoa. Land of the Long White Cloud. Country of my birth.
Kiwi to my Yamabushi.
And yet, I still get culture shock. Or, maybe it’s reverse culture shock. Or maybe, it’s Aotearoa’s entirely unwarranted infatuation with the US.
Whatever it was,
for the love of Kami,
please,
I beg of you,
in the kindest way possible,
fuck off.
We don’t take kindly to your types around here. Or anywhere, for that matter.
You see, I was invited out for dinner by some Japanese colleagues. Being a local boy you would think I would know my way around. However, I hadn’t been to Ōtepoti for, I don’t know, 25 years.
That’s pre-braces buck-toothed me.
So we did what any rational-thinking tourist would do,
we asked the real locals.
The people from Ōtepoti. The people who know the place.
My colleagues were huge wine fans. If you’re a fan of wine and you’re in Aotearoa, you’ve come to the right place.
I don’t drink. My father did. A lot. Enough that it probably killed him. Wine has never really been my thing, but when your colleagues have flown halfway around the world to sample Aotearoa’s finest, you don’t say no.
But then, The Thing happened.
The reverse-culture-shock Americans-get-out-of-my-backyard Thing.
We split the bill, which was great because my wine-glass-induced meal was nowhere near as expensive as their wine-bottle-induced meal. However, when I went to pay I was confronted with something I had never seen in Aotearoa, country of my birth, Land of the Long White Cloud,
Kiwi to my Yamabushi.
I got my card out ready to put in the machine, but instead of asking for my PIN number the card reader said:
How much would you like to tip?
How much would I like to tip?
What is this? Colorado? Wisconsin? Or, Kami-forbid,
Alabama?
Aotearoa is supposed to be different. We don’t do this. We pay workers decent wages. We don’t put the burden of their survival on customers.
I look around. This is still Aotearoa, right? I haven’t been secretly teleported to downtown Nashville? I check the menu for any mention of ‘gratuity expected’.
Nothing.
I half expected someone to pop out from the kitchen with an American flag on one shoulder and a bald eagle on the other repeatedly shouting “all y’all”.
Nothing.
That’s how much I would like to tip. That’s how much I would like anyone to tip. That’s how much I would like anyone to need to tip.
“Land of the free”.
Give me a break.
The thing is though, their ploy worked.
They successfully guilt-tripped me into paying up. 20% or whatever it was.
I felt duped. I felt violated.
It felt very un-Kiwi.
Is this what it feels like to be an American?
If it is, for the love of Kami,
please,
I beg of you,
in the kindest way possible…
(If this offends you, look into how tipping culture came about in The US, i.e. its racist undertones…)