Boston Globe Article on Chinese restaurants embrace of tiki

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2017/01/23/tiki-drinks-pupu-platters-and-side-bread-how-chinese-restaurants-came-embrace-polynesian-kitsch/K2uqZiaCt05TTsTvpTH4UI/story.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ReadMore_Pos1

Thanks for sharing! A great quote from the article:

Irene Li, co-owner of Chinese-American food truck and restaurant Mei Mei:
“But in that the still-existing restaurants haven’t changed much in decades, there is a charming, earnest, authentic kind of inauthenticity.”

I like this quote....

“This is where they’re allowed to encounter Asians, and the idea of Asia and the Pacific, in a very contained way, not in public, not out in cities or in urban areas,” says Padoongpatt. “This is a safe way for them to interact with an ‘exotic’ culture.”

Kahiki had people from everywhere, lots of Cuban people at first.
Heck I think Asians were the one nationality Kahiki had the least of as the blonds had to wear wigs to look Asian.
At the end a young kinda rough lookin "Mystery Girl" would come out and plop the "Mystery drink" down in front of you and stomp away.
Not much "Mystery" there.

Now in this day and age I love to go to the grocery stores that are "exotic" as you find cool new things to cook with.

Most of them HATE it when I come in, the restaurants don't show this as much.
Not just Asians but all of the other cultures do this.
It has in my world gotten worse.

When I grew up we had many other cultures in our suburb / school.