For the past couple of decades, night owls¹ with the munchies have flocked to a certain street in Beijing that is packed with all-night restaurants.

在过去的二十年里，北京的吃货夜猫子们会蜂拥到一条通宵营业餐馆的街道上觅食。

The sidewalks are jammed with cars and have a perpetual patina² of rancid-smelling cooking oil.

人行道上停满了汽车，空气中弥漫的都是油烟味。

One of the trendier restaurants on the block is called A Very Long Time Ago. The decor is upscale Paleolithic, with silhouettes³ of cavemen traipsing across the walls.

“很久以前”是这条街上的一家比较时髦的餐馆，它的装潢是高档的石器时代风格，穴居人的剪影在墙上走来走去。

The clientele is not so fossilized. They're mostly 20-somethings who roast skewers⁴ of food over hot coals.

不过顾客们则没有那么老朽，他们大多是20多岁的年轻人，在炙热的炭火上烤着食材串。

Young Chinese restaurant customers willing to pay for better service are leading a small-scale revival⁵ of tipping not seen in Chinese restaurants for decades.

中国年轻一代的餐厅顾客愿意为更好的服务付费，他们正在引领付小费的小规模复兴，这种做法已在中国餐馆绝迹数十年。

The trend began at this restaurant last October, and is so far confined to Beijing, Shanghai and other top-tier cities.

这一趋势于去年10月从这家餐馆兴起，目前仅限于北京、上海和其他一线城市。

Every few minutes at A Very Long Time Ago, a prerecorded message informs diners that if they like the service, they can use their smartphones to scan QR codes that the waitstaff wear on their sleeves.

在“很久以前”，每隔几分钟就会有一段提前录好的语音提示顾客，如果他们对服务感到满意，可以使用智能手机扫描服务员衣袖上的二维码。

This generates a tip of 4.56 yuan, about 70 cents. Diners can tip as many times as they want.

这一做法会产生4.56元人民币的小费。顾客想“打赏”几次都可以。

"To customers, that's like just a game," says restaurant owner Song Ji. He invented this system, which he claims is the first of its kind in China.

“很久以前”的老板宋吉表示：“对顾客来说，这就像是一种游戏。”他是这一做法的发明人，据他表示，该店是全国第一家这么做的。

The important thing, Song says, is to keep the tips small in proportion to the bill, so the bonus doesn't become an onus⁶ on customers.

宋吉称，重要的是让小费金额只相当于账单金额的一小部分，这样一来小费就不会成为顾客的负担。

"Where the average bill is $30 per person," he says, "I recommend a tip of no more than 70 cents."

他说，“如果人均消费30美元，那么我建议小费不要超过70美分。”

He's just back from the U.S., where he visited restaurants in Chicago and Los Angeles. He says he felt that tipping has not only become a burden on American customers, but more importantly, it has lost its meaning.

宋吉刚刚从美国回来，在那趟旅行中，他去了芝加哥和洛杉矶的餐馆，感到支付小费不仅成了美国顾客的负担，而且更重要的是付小费已经失去了原本的意义。

"No matter how bad the service gets, you still have to give a 15 percent tip," he observes. "That's no good!"

他说：“无论服务有多糟，你都必须支付15%的小费。这样不好。”

Song pulls out his cellphone to show me statistics on tipping at all of his restaurants. There's an app for that, of course, and it shows how many times each member of the wait staff has been tipped at each restaurant, and how much money they've earned in total.

宋吉拿出手机，展示了他所经营的所有连锁餐馆的小费统计数据。一款手机应用会显示出每家餐馆的每名服务员被“打赏”多少次以及他们赚取小费的总额。

This restaurant's top tip-taker is 20-year-old Liu Enhui. In addition to her base salary of about $450 a month, she says she can get as many as 60 tips in an evening.

这家餐馆的最高赏金得主是现年20岁的刘恩慧。她表示，在每月约450美元底薪的基础上，她每晚还可以得到多达60笔小费。

"It's important to me. I take in anywhere from $15 to $30 in tips a day," she explains. "Over the course of a month, it really adds up."

她解释称：“这对我来说很重要。每天我能拿到15美元至30美元的小费。一个月下来，确实挺多的。”

At A Very Long Time Ago, most of the customers do tip. One regular, who only gives his last name, Yu, says that at a restaurant like this one, service matters.

在“很久以前”，大多数顾客都会支付小费。一名经常光顾这家餐馆的于姓顾客表示，在像这样的餐馆里，服务很重要。

"Especially when you're grilling⁷ meat, you don't know if it's cooked through or not," he explains. "The waiter or waitress can show up at the right time to tell you when it's ready."

他解释说：“特别是在烤肉的时候，你不知道肉熟没熟。服务员会在正确的时候出现，告诉你什么时候肉烤好了。”

Feng Enyuan, deputy director of the Chinese Culinary Association, points out that forms of tipping did exist in China before the Communist revolution. In some restaurants, satisfied customers would toss change into a bamboo tube next to the cashier. But the practice was wiped out in the 1950s.

中国烹饪协会副会长冯恩援指出，在公私合营前，老的饭庄都有打赏传统。在某些饭庄，满意的顾客会把找零扔进柜台旁的一个竹筒里。但是在上世纪50年代，这一做法被废除了。

Feng says reintroducing the practice of tipping has to be done slowly and cautiously. He offers this advice to restaurateurs:"Don't ruin a good thing," he counsels. "Whatever you do, don't make things difficult for customers or make them feel uncertain about what to do."

冯恩援会长表示，重新引入打赏做法必须谨慎地慢慢来。他向餐馆老板提出了如下建议：“别毁掉一件好事。不管你怎么做，都别为难顾客或是让他们拿不准该怎么做。”