Hotel Asia

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


Each evening on the way home I drive past a place that has captured my interest, the Hotel Asia.  It is an older three-story building on Highway 58, and I can never go past without wondering what stories those rooms could tell.  Unfortunately, it is located on a stretch of highway where there is no place to pull over, frustrating my desire to take a few pictures for posterity, so tonight I managed to snag the attached photo from the driver's side window of my little car as I was motivating through the traffic.

I am speculating that the Chan family had the Okinawan branch of their famous detective agency on the third floor, and the second floor was probably used by American servicemen in the 1950's as they performed cultural exchanges with the local girls.  The ground floor undoubtedly had a bar with slowly rotating ceiling fans and maybe a three-piece house band with a vocalist who specialized in torch songs.

Maybe it sits on the site of the original Teahouse of the August Moon.    The only certainty is that the structure was built after the Americans fought their way ashore in 1945.  Everything was rubble then,