Mainland visitors notice it regularly - they don't get the same treatment as do local people in Hong Kong restaurants. Some cross-border customers even find the food quality unsatisfactory. Kane Wu reports.

"What a disgrace to Hong Kong tourism!" blasted the comment on a mainland Internet forum for tourists, www.nasuan.com. The comment drew a lot of attention in the Hong Kong media earlier this month.

The author of the post reprimanded "Yuen Kei", a cha chaan teng (Hong Kong-style restaurant) in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, where she had dined after going shopping, for having two different sets of prices - lower prices for Hong Kong residents and higher prices for tourists.

"We ordered the same food as the local people at the next table, but the boss charged us HK$20 more!" complained the irate customer. "When we questioned the boss, he denied doing anything wrong, but actually said he had added more ingredients in our bowls! This is completely outrageous!"

The woman discovered that the restaurant had two different menus - one for local people, one for tourists. Everything listed on the tourist menu was more expensive than the corresponding item on the menu for local people. After much argument, the restaurant owner finally relented, with much reluctance, according to the female customer, allowing her to pay the "local" price.

"Don't fool us tourists! I hope all fellow mainland tourists will boycott this restaurant from now on!" the woman railed as she concluded her denunciation.

A Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong grabbed the story and sent a reporter to the restaurant on Granville Street to pose as an overseas Chinese tourist. He was handed the tourist menu - the one with the higher prices. The scam was immediately busted.

That wasn't the only unpleasant confrontation between Hong Kong restaurants and mainland tourists this month. Two men from the mainland got into a fight, an actual physical tussle with a member of the staff at Chiu Hing Fishball Noodle Restaurant, back on Aug 9. According to the accounts, the mainland customers at this Tsim Sha Tsui retreat frequented by the wealthy and famous found an insect in a food bowl. An argument with staff members ensued. The argument escalated into a fight, which eyewitnesses said raged fiercely until police came to break it up.

In 2009, the Consumer Council got 18 complaints from mainland tourists about service in local eateries. In 2010, there were 25. In the first six months of this year, there were 13 complaints, five more than during the same period last year. Not only has the service in local restaurants suddenly come into question, so has the quality of the food, based upon what can be ascertained from the complaints.

"You can expect the food to be expensive at the tourist spots, but restaurants should not deliberately rip people off or treat them poorly just because they are tourists," commented Liza, who is from the mainland who didn't wish to give her full name. "Tourists won't necessarily complain to the Consumer Council. Most of them, I think, don't know where to complain," she added.

Liza has lived in Hong Kong for three years. She works as a knowledge exchange professional and has had unhappy experiences in local restaurants.

"A few days ago I went to a famous Sichuanese food restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. The waiter forgot to confirm my order and I had to wait almost 40 minutes before I was told about that," she complained to China Daily. "I was angry and wanted an explanation. The waiter simply said, 'you can either withdraw the order or wait for the food' and then walked away."

Liza approached the restaurant manager to argue that her bill should be discounted. The manager offered a free pot of tea. "This is not acceptable. Normally I wouldn't make a fuss, but treated with this attitude, we deserve a much bigger discount!" she said. "How do you keep customers like this? Maybe my expectation for Hong Kong restaurant service was too high. I always thought they treated customers like Gods."

Luke Lin, who also comes from the mainland and now lives in Hong Kong, suspects his mainland roots account for the different treatment he gets from some local restaurants.

"I used to go to dai pai dong (open-air food stalls and restaurants) quite often. When I was with local friends, the waiters were all very friendly, introducing us to their specialties and chatting with us like old friends. But when I went to the same place with a group of mainland people, the attitude was completely different. The waiters were impatient when taking our orders and always told us not to order too many dishes, because 'we won't be able to eat them all'," said the 25-year-old Fujian native, who now works at a research institute. "Maybe they couldn't communicate with us that well in Mandarin, or maybe my Cantonese was not good enough. Either way there was a huge difference in their attitudes."

Lin said local people tip waiters at dai pai dong, even though there is no service charge. He won't leave a tip, if he thinks the service was no good. This odor of discrimination makes itself apparent in some online forums where people from Hong Kong are none too sympathetic about the unhappy encounters involving mainland people and restaurant staff.

"Mainland people are used to eating contaminated food. Why would they make such a fuss about a tiny insect in the bowl?" commented one Hong Kong citizen in the online forum of www.discuss.com.hk, one of the most popular online BBS in the city.

"These tourists just wanted to avoid paying the bill. It has happened so many times before," said another.

"The staff member was just hitting some locusts. They can't even be counted as tourists," replied another. According to the local colloquialism, mainlanders are referred to as "locusts" by some people, implying that they come to Hong Kong like plagues of "locusts".

"There are cultural barriers between mainland and Hong Kong people, so conflicts are easily aroused by misunderstandings," commented Geng Chunya, chief secretary of the Mainland Overseas-Returned Scholars in Hong Kong and a member of the Commission on Youth of the HKSAR.

"Sometimes I feel it is not about mainland people. Generally the quality of Hong Kong's service industries have gone down over the years," said the Anhui native who runs an online social network management company. He has been in the city for 10 years and in his opinion, local restaurant staff are not as professional and easy to communicate with as they used to be.

"I remember taking a few friends to a restaurant not long ago. We were supposed to pay some HK$800 but the waiter charged us more than HK$900. I looked at the bill and realized he secretly had changed one of our dishes to a more expensive one and charged us the price for a large-size plate while we only ordered a small-size plate for another dish," he recalled. "The waiter appeared warm and friendly, maybe a bit too much. It made me suspicious."

Geng, who travels to the mainland periodically, believes service quality in mainland cities is catching up Hong Kong. "In some Shenzhen restaurants, even if you have found a problem with your servings, the staff all are willing to communicate with a friendly attitude. I do feel that Hong Kong needs to improve its quality of restaurant service, especially the attitudes."

A spokeswoman from the Consumer Council told China Daily that if the council finds malpractices in local restaurants, it will look into the matter immediately and ask the management of the restaurant responsible to correct them. She added however that the number of complaints on eateries filed by mainland tourists is not particularly high, when compared to complaints filed against other industries.

"We were very surprised to see different menus given out to local customers and tourists," said the spokeswoman. "Restaurants should treat all customers the same, otherwise it will bring confusion to customers. Local people might take their mainland friends to restaurants as well."

The council suggested that tourists discuss any food quality problem with responsible persons at the restaurant to try to arrive at a solution. "If tourists complain to us afterwards, it would be very difficult for us to collect evidence," said the spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman from the Hong Kong Tourism Board suggested that tourists choose restaurants that participate in the authority's Quality Tourism Services Scheme. Merchants under the scheme are required to provide clearly displayed prices, clear information and ensure superb customer service, she said.

The Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades declined to comment on any of the malpractices, when approached by China Daily.

"I believe most mainland people feel quite positive towards local restaurant services. I do too," Liza said, "I just hope that restaurants, especially in the tourists spots, will pay attention to their attitude. After all, they also play a part in building the city's image."

When China Daily checked out Yuen Kei a few days ago, it found that the menu had changed.

The updated menu is placed on every table, so there can be no discrimination against visitors. The restaurant appears to have learned its lesson.

(HK Edition 08/25/2011 page4)