“Just as important, you don't pay extra for that care. There is no tipping in Japan. It's not only discouraged, it's simply not done. There's no tip line on a credit card slip, and if you try to press cash into the hand of someone opening your door or taking your coat, the person will look as confused as your dentist would if you tried to slip him or her $20 for being so generous with the Novocaine. The service culture of Japan, which always over-delivers, directly contradicts the tipping culture of the United States, which supposedly incentivizes superior service but can have exactly the inverse effect: Tip well, or watch out. "You have to remember that in Japan you don't have a category called service, because it's completely integrated into what you do," says Merry White, author of Coffee Life in Japan and professor of anthropology at Boston University. "It's not an extra. It's valued, but it isn't monetized." “ "You have a three-star restaurant in Japan, the famous chef with all the awards—and he's not only preparing the food, he's preparing it for you." ” ——Chef David Kinch I find the Japanese system liberating. The price is the price, and if you are treated well it's not because you're expected to pay extra. "We [in America] are the ones who separate it out," White notes. The service I experienced in Japan wasn't simply a better version of what I find in the United States and Europe, it was the expression of a profoundly different understanding of what we consider "work." A job means more than just checking off a couple of boxes. According to Masaru Watanabe, the executive director and general manager of the Palace Hotel Tokyo, a grand hotel overlooking the grounds of the Imperial Palace, it demands an emotional commitment. "Although Japanese hospitality, or what we call omotenashi, has developed a reputation outside of Japan as being a benchmark for exceptional service, it can be very difficult to define. It's as intangible as it is palpable, something to be felt rather than explained," says Watanabe. "To me, [it is] hospitality that's extended with the utmost sincerity, grace and respect, however big or small the gesture or the task. Not to be mistaken with the other, perhaps more commonly experienced version of service, which is superficial service delivered out of a sense of obligation and with an expectation of reward." ”
