15 Jun 2019

'Long Distance': tiki (bar) tour

From The Podcast Hour, 12:25 pm on 15 June 2019

With a blend of tacky decor, exotic drinks, hula skirts and loud shirts, nothing said fun quite like the tiki bars and Polynesian-themed cocktail lounges that sprang up in the US back in the Fifties and the Sixties.

Paola Mardo's an audio producer based in California whose show 'Long Distance' tells stories about the Filipino diaspora.

She first got interested in tiki bars when she found out about all the Filipino bartenders who got jobs at these drinking spots. She even did her university thesis about them! And with these bars now experiencing a bit of a revival, she reviews their problematic cultural heritage.

We play some of Episode 6 of Long Distance written, hosted and produced by Paola Mardo, and produced by Patrick Epino (who also took most of the photos in the gallery above).