美国国家公共电台 NPR Let's Talk Tiki Bars: Harmless Fun Or Exploitation?

Let's Talk Tiki Bars: Harmless Fun Or Exploitation? 

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The faux-Polynesian rum palaces that were all the rage in the 1960s - the tiki bar - is making a comeback, but there's a darker side to these little slices of kitschy paradise for some Pacific Islanders. NPR's Maanvi Singh reports.

MAANVI SINGH, BYLINE²: I'm at a bar called Archipelago in Washington, D.C, with a friend of mine, Angelo Villagomez. He's from the Pacific island of Saipan. And our drink has just arrived at the table.

ANGELO VILLAGOMEZ: So the name of this drink is the Pineapple of Hospitality, and it's a whole pineapple that's been hollowed out. And I think there's some sort of adult beverage³ on the inside.

SINGH: It's mostly rum with some fruit on top, and it's flaming (laughter).

VILLAGOMEZ: Oh, yeah. That's lime. And it's - oh, yeah, and it's on fire.

SINGH: This place is tiki kitsch to the max - fishing floats hanging from the ceiling, a lamp in the corner is shaped like a sexy hula dancer, and by the bar, they've got a shrine⁴ to Tom Selleck. It all reminds Angelo of a 1960s TV series he grew up with.

VILLAGOMEZ: I feel like I'm in "Gidget Goes To Hawaii."

SINGH: In fact, tiki bars first started popping up post-World War II as people in the military returned home from the Pacific theater. That's according to Ken⁵ Albala, a professor of history at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco.

KEN ALBALA: And had been to places like Tonga and Fiji and the whole South Pacific.

SINGH: They wanted to bring a piece of that tropical paradise home with them. But the thing about tiki bars is...

ALBALA: They make no pretense⁶ to being authentically⁷ Polynesian.

SINGH: Sure, the decor draws inspiration from these places. Tiki is a Maori word for a type of stone or wooden carving⁸ found all over the Polynesian Islands, but the American tiki bar hardly resembles anything you'd find on the Pacific isles¹⁰. These bars, oddly enough, tend to serve Chinese food, and the signature rum drinks are completely American inventions. Here's Kalewa Correa from the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Center here in D.C..

KALEWA CORREA: It's just taking all those cultures and just putting them in a - in a blender and blending it together and creating this idea of this Isle⁹ of Tiki, which is this mythical¹¹ place that tiki bars come from.

SINGH: The man working the real blender at the bar tonight is Owen Thompson. He's the owner of Archipelago.

OWEN THOMSON: It gives you a reason sort of step out of your daily life. And you're in this place, and it's like, you know, island music, big fruity rum drinks, thatch¹² and bamboo everywhere. And you just kind of, like, let it all go for a bit.

SINGH: Let it all go. That's something type A Washington-D.C.-types like me should probably do a bit more often, but here's the thing. I'm drinking a pina colada out of a ceramic¹³ mug that's shaped like what's actually an important cultural symbol for the Hawaiians, the Maori and the Samoans. You've got to stop and think about that for a minute, says Correa from the Smithsonian.

CORREA: What you're looking at - the carvings¹⁴ - are either representations of gods or the representation of ancestors.

SINGH: He says it would be like having a Christian-themed bar, drinking out of a glass shaped like the Virgin¹⁵ Mary.

CORREA: Really, when you look at the root of it, it's exploitation. It's ignoring the real lives, the real cultures and the real challenges that we do face.

SINGH: Like the fact that global warming is threatening their homeland and their traditional ways of living. Angelo agrees up to a point. He says the whole tiki phenomenon is also affecting how Americans think about the Pacific Islands.

VILLAGOMEZ: Were seen as this place that's just a tourist destination - that it's only - it's only a place that you go to have fun.

SINGH: And that doesn't sit well with many islanders who think of themselves as earnest hard workers. But he's still able to enjoy his Pineapple of Hospitality.

VILLAGOMEZ: I'm feeling the hospitality. Let me tell you. The way we look in the popular culture is more of an issue of identity, but, man, this rum is good (laughter).

SINGH: Maanvi Singh, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 beverage   

n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料

参考例句：

• The beverage is often colored with caramel.这种饮料常用焦糖染色。
• Beer is a beverage of the remotest time.啤酒是一种最古老的饮料。

4 shrine   

n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣

参考例句：

• The shrine was an object of pilgrimage.这处圣地是人们朝圣的目的地。
• They bowed down before the shrine.他们在神龛前鞠躬示敬。

5 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

6 pretense   

n.矫饰，做作，借口

参考例句：

• You can't keep up the pretense any longer.你无法继续伪装下去了。
• Pretense invariably impresses only the pretender.弄虚作假欺骗不了真正的行家。

7 authentically   

ad.sincerely真诚地

参考例句：

• Gina: And we should give him something 2 authentically Taiwanese. 吉娜：而且我们应该送他有纯正台湾味的东西。
• A loser is one who fails to correspond authentically. 失败者则指那些未能做到诚实可靠的人。

8 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

9 isle   

n.小岛，岛

参考例句：

• He is from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.他来自爱尔兰海的马恩岛。
• The boat left for the paradise isle of Bali.小船驶向天堂一般的巴厘岛。

10 isles   

岛( isle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the geology of the British Isles 不列颠群岛的地质
• The boat left for the isles. 小船驶向那些小岛。

11 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

12 thatch   

vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋)

参考例句：

• They lit a torch and set fire to the chapel's thatch.他们点着一支火把，放火烧了小教堂的茅草屋顶。
• They topped off the hut with a straw thatch. 他们给小屋盖上茅草屋顶。

13 ceramic   

n.制陶业，陶器，陶瓷工艺

参考例句：

• The order for ceramic tiles has been booked in.瓷砖的订单已登记下来了。
• Some ceramic works of art are shown in this exhibition.这次展览会上展出了一些陶瓷艺术品。

14 carvings   

n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物

参考例句：

• The desk was ornamented with many carvings. 这桌子装饰有很多雕刻物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town. 贝雕是该城的特产。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。