Manila has a famously vibrant, and infamously dodgy, nightlife. One bar that has become an institution by straddling that line is “The Hobbit House”, a blues rock bar staffed entirely by ‘little people’. I’m not sure if they have to wear Tokienesque costumes, but there is a large mural of Gandalf on the wall outside in case you missed the allusion.
I was in two minds about going; I was frankly curious, but wondered if it was not too exploitative. But then, I thought, these people have chosen to work there…
It was not until I saw surprising numbers of “little people” sleeping rough on Malate’s streets that I realised what an empty ‘choice’ this was. In the end I decided not to go out of principle, (but I still stopped by to take this voyeuristic pic of the fabled Hobbit house door.)
[...] in Manila, a city of hobbit bars (where the directors does much of his casting), garbage-sifting slums, manic-depressive cuisine, [...]