Post #680 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 11:38 AM

I am sorry, but 50s Americans were NOT exactly cosmopolitans. Polynesia was THE first exotic culture they came in contact with. The fact is that a large part of the Tiki supper club clientel took the decor for genuinly Polynesian, NOT a funny rendition of that culture done by Americans.
It is just not conceivable today, when TV and the media has brought the world on to everybody's doorstep, to which extent the average American was, if not to use the words innocent or ignorant, simply inexperienced with other foreign cultures. The middle American mom and pop's knowledge of other customs generally was in direct relation to the size of their National Geographic collection. This was much more the case back then, but even today I am baffled to still meet Americans that never have left the country. That is just inconceivable in Europe, where you drive a whole day and have passed three countries. I am not saying this is good or bad, it just made for a certain cultural inexperience.

[ Edited by: Basement Kahuna on 2004-02-05 10:03 ]