Post #803009 by SouthSeasKat on Tue, Apr 19, 2022 8:01 PM

Howdy, everyone, I'm Kat.

I tried for years to get onto Tiki Central, but always ran into registration problems. Through the help of Lagoon of Mystery and the moderators, I was finally able to get the SouthSeasKat registration to go through.

Then Tiki Central went down before I even posted once, I think! Glad it is back!

I'm on that Gen X/Millennial transition point (Cold Y), but see myself as more X than Millennial for a variety of reasons. I see this represented in Tiki culture more generally, as I think Millennials are less into the kitsch, and Zoomers are not be interested at all. Zoomers seem to have a fondness for the culture of our adolescence, and I guess such is the cycle of life.

I grew up in southern New Mexico and northern Texas, so for me the fantasy aspect of even a California or Florida beach was pretty strong. Once when I was about 13 or so we went to South Padre Island. I'm a desert rat, so I was always really attracted to the mid-century fascination with Tiki, because I think it was easy to identify with my grandparents for whom any travel was super difficult.

Briefly a Midshipman in the Navy, the Navy taught me to sail. The Navy wasn't for me for a variety of reasons, but it definitely proved my love of the sea and the shore, something missing from my childhood and adolescence. I've sailed in Nagasaki, Sydney, and in Texas.

Since graduating from university in the mid-00s, I have since lived in Korea, Japan, Australia, Japan again, and spent significant time in Thailand, Vietnam, Guam (for Naval purposes), the Philippines, and spent a day running around Hong Kong. My mother and I have been trying to make Hawaii happen for years, but COVID kept stopping that. With Japan, I have also been to some outlying islands, the Goto Retto off the coast of Nagasaki is a hidden gem, a total tropical paradise. You'd think it was Okinawa at least. I've been in Japan for 14 years total now, all of it with uninterrupted legal residency.

I currently live in a beach side area on Tokyo bay that is a suburb or bedroom community of Tokyo called Makuhari. The entire Chiba peninsula is called "Chibafornia" because it is very much like California in beaches and appearance during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. But we have real winter with snow and everything, so sometimes having palm trees and snow is pretty odd.

I have a small apartment that I've slowly been renovating to be a tiki/mid-century modern beach house hybrid thing. I've been documenting that on my instagram @nippolitica.

I can post photos here or in home tiki bar builds, I guess?

Anyhow, hello, aloha, mahalo, mabuhay, etc.