Post #506892 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 4:16 PM

Yah Herr Professor! Thank you for being my eye witness, if not for that (and the pictures) nobody would have believed this actually happened. I do think though if I would be walking up to a dude I just saw wield a 30 inch blade I would keep my visor down -- it's an old custom. :)

But not to get more off-topic than we already did, back to the genre of Exotica music, and my belief that it's popularity was in part due to America's fascination with Asia in the 50s and 60s, which I believe was forged by the contact with it that was made by so many Americans in the second World War (just like in Polynesia). Some of the very same people that inspired Polynesian pop did so with Asian pop, mainly Rogers & Hammerstein and James Michener...

In the years after the war, there were tons of movies, books, and music portraying American- Asian relations...

Now I do NOT want to start an "Asian Pop" thread on TIKI Central, I am saying Asia's had a notable effect on the EXOTICA music genre (!)
Chinese cuisine and Asian waitresses and dancers played a role in Tiki culture, as mentioned in the BOT...

...but in terms of STYLE , design and decor, it was not a defining factor (the "Asian" font excepted).

Let me close my observations with a quote from my upcoming CD booklet:

As the 1955 paperback edition of James Michener’s “Sayonara” touts: “This challenging novel probes into the question of why so many American men prefer the tender and submissive women of the exotic East”.