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: 2009.08.10: August 10, 2009: Headlines: COS - Philippines: Service: Restaurants: Music: LA Times:
For 35 years, RPCV Jim Turner has operated the Hobbit House in Manila, a bar themed on J.R.R.
Tolkien's fantasy novels, a realm marked by all things miniature whose employees are dwarfs
rescued from the heartless streets of this capital city
For 35 years, RPCV Jim Turner has operated the Hobbit House in Manila, a bar themed on J.R.R.
Tolkien's fantasy novels, a realm marked by all things miniature whose employees are dwarfs
rescued from the heartless streets of this capital city
Turner arrived in the Philippines in 1961, a young idealist out to change the world. Among the first
group of Peace Corps volunteers in the country, he taught English for two years in a rural province,
then moved back to Manila. Slowly, he became consumed by this poor, exotic and often-maddening
country. He wanted to stay. After years in Manila, Iowa seemed more like the foreign country. He did
odd jobs, eventually becoming a television station manager. That's when he was introduced to his
first dwarfs. "We ran a lot of variety shows where we cast midgets, dwarfs and
transvestites," says Turner, a graying man with bushy eyebrows. "They were a staple of TV
then." In 1972, then-President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and shut down the station.
Turner needed work, so he and some friends came up with an idea for a theme bar. He'd read
Tolkien's books as a boy in Cedar Rapids and knew that little people were easy to find in
Manila. His first stop was a business called Central Casting, where he hired two dwarfs to work as
doormen. Word got out and little people from all over the country began asking for work. Soon Turner
was overrun with little people. They worked as waiters and bartenders and he built them miniature
sets of stairs that they climbed to conduct business at the towering wooden bar. But they soon
wanted more: They asked to entertain. So Turner let them have the stage for vaudeville-type acts
that featured little people as the big stars. His first performer was a woman named Little Lucy, who
ate fire and juggled, balanced on a fulcrum.
For 35 years, RPCV Jim Turner has operated the Hobbit House in Manila, a bar themed on J.R.R.
Tolkien's fantasy novels, a realm marked by all things miniature whose employees are dwarfs
rescued from the heartless streets of this capital city
Manila's Hobbit House bar: Full of little people and a big love
Ex-Peace Corps volunteer Jim Turner rescued dwarfs from the Philippine capital's harsh streets
and gave them a place to call home. Now they can't imagine life without him.
By John M. Glionna
August 10, 2009
Reporting from Manila, Philippines -- Every night without fail, Jim Turner is there at the far
corner of the bar, chain-smoking his Marlboros and sipping ice-cold San Miguel from the bottle,
watching over the Little Ones.
He considers them family, but they're not his children. They're the dwarfs and other little
people the 70-year-old Iowa native has rescued from the heartless streets of this capital city to
offer them friendship and honest work.
For 35 years, the former Peace Corps volunteer has operated the Hobbit House, a bar themed on J.R.R.
Tolkien's fantasy novels, a realm marked by all things miniature.
Under his care, hundreds of dwarfs have adopted new cultural identities. They're no longer
shunned or even feared as supposed evil spirits, but have become popular characters called hobbits
-- merry figures who serve drinks, crack ribald jokes and even entertain onstage.
At Turner's bar, on a dingy block of strip clubs and speak-easies in central Manila, the dwarfs
draw a loyal crowd. They're entertainers who get the joke, always ready to use their small size
for a few good-natured laughs.
The Hobbit House features what may be the world's smallest Elvis impersonator. There have been
hobbit jugglers, comics, dancers, flame-eaters and a singer who sounded eerily like Frank Sinatra.
Many of the waiters and bartenders are the grandchildren of the dwarfs who helped Turner launch the
bar. There's now even a second location, at a tourist resort in the central Philippines.
Yet critics have accused Turner of exploiting his workers. Stubbing out a Marlboro, he frowns.
"We took many from the worst slums in Manila, where they were mocked and ridiculed," he
says. "Now they're no longer carnival freaks. They're respected entertainers and
businesspeople."
And Turner is their godfather. Workers tell of the night when two drunken Australians began playing
catch with terrified little people; Turner stepped between two ruffians nearly twice his size and
threw them out of the bar.
He has provided many of his workers with loans and housing and has paid tuitions. Several years ago,
he gave them something perhaps even more precious: the Hobbit House itself.
He founded a corporation, naming seven of his employees the main stockholders. Now they make the
decisions and call the shots. From his perch at the bar, Turner watches over the business as a
consultant and takes only enough salary to pay his bills.
The dwarfs call him tito and kuya, "uncle" and "older brother."
Pidoy Fetalino, a 35-year veteran of the bar, likes to stroll into business meetings, raise his hand
to greet average-sized clients and proudly announce that he's the establishment's general
manager.
Over drinks after the bar closes, he gets emotional about Turner, who has helped him put two
children through college and discover self-respect.
"He's our protector, a big man with a big heart," Fetalino says. "One day he said to
us: 'This Hobbit House belongs to all of you. You earned it.' A lot of us cried that
day."
One afternoon, Turner sits on the street-side patio as colorful jeepneys race past, their horns
blaring, seats filled with passengers.
An elderly dwarf limps in with two small men. Naida Morehon retired from the Hobbit House two years
ago when her knees gave out. Her husband died last year and she needed money.
As always, Turner took care of things.
"Hi, Naida," he says, lighting a cigarette. "Did you get the check?"
She hurries to embrace him. Seated, Turner is face to face with Morehon, who places her small hand
on his cheek.
"I did, Tito," she says. "What would we do without you?"
* Photos: Hobbit House is a bit of Middle-Earth in Manila
Photos: Hobbit House is a bit of Middle-...
A young idealist
Turner arrived in the Philippines in 1961, a young idealist out to change the world. Among the first
group of Peace Corps volunteers in the country, he taught English for two years in a rural province,
then moved back to Manila.
Slowly, he became consumed by this poor, exotic and often-maddening country. He wanted to stay.
After years in Manila, Iowa seemed more like the foreign country.
He did odd jobs, eventually becoming a television station manager. That's when he was introduced
to his first dwarfs.
"We ran a lot of variety shows where we cast midgets, dwarfs and transvestites," says
Turner, a graying man with bushy eyebrows. "They were a staple of TV then."
In 1972, then-President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and shut down the station. Turner
needed work, so he and some friends came up with an idea for a theme bar.
He'd read Tolkien's books as a boy in Cedar Rapids and knew that little people were easy to
find in Manila. His first stop was a business called Central Casting, where he hired two dwarfs to
work as doormen. Word got out and little people from all over the country began asking for work.
Soon Turner was overrun with little people. They worked as waiters and bartenders and he built them
miniature sets of stairs that they climbed to conduct business at the towering wooden bar.
But they soon wanted more: They asked to entertain. So Turner let them have the stage for
vaudeville-type acts that featured little people as the big stars. His first performer was a woman
named Little Lucy, who ate fire and juggled, balanced on a fulcrum.
"For a while," Turner recalls, "everyone wanted to be an Elvis impersonator."
Often, life at the Hobbit House was surreal.
In one act, a dwarf dressed as a security guard patrolled with a Great Dane three times his size. On
New Year's Eve, some of the performers wear diapers and bonnets and carry rattles onstage to
become tottering symbols of the infant year.
For a while, after an employee's uncle closed his pet store, monkeys roamed the bar. There were
parrots, turkeys, an eagle and even an alligator. Turner eventually found homes for them too.
During martial law, the bar became the watering hole of the city's political subversives:
anti-Marcos reactionaries, U.S. spies, protesters on the run from the law.
In the mid-1970s, when Francis Ford Coppola filmed "Apocalypse Now" in the Philippines, the
Hobbit House was a regular hangout for the director, actors and crew, Turner says, doing his
impersonation of Marlon Brando shouting for another drink.
Over the years, he learned that not all of the hobbits were fairy-tale characters. He had to fire
some who stole from the till. But Turner quickly recognized the ones he could trust.
They are people like Fetalino. He started as a cashier, but when Turner heard he'd had two years
of college, he sent Fetalino for management training. He's been general manager for 15 years.
"You see the hurdles they scale," Turner says, "and you realize that no matter how many
problems you have, if you're average size in this world, you've got the game half-won."
Life without Jim
The Monday rush is here and the workers at the Hobbit House are ready for action.
But sitting around a table, a few quietly voice a common concern: What would they ever do without
the nurturing and guidance of Jim Turner?
Although he swears he's in perfect health, they know he drinks and smokes too much. A decade
ago, when he got sick, a large group of employees went to visit him in the hospital. An exhausted
Turner had to tell nurses not to admit any visitor less than 4 feet tall.
Many say it gives them comfort knowing he's there at his perch, with a green lamp by his side so
he can see bills and paperwork in the darkened bar.
But they know he's getting older and more frail.
Perhaps Waiter Edward Vitto, 33, said it best: "It won't be the same place without him --
just a bunch of little people with broken hearts."
john.g...@latimes.com
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
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Directory of Philippines RPCVs
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Messages and Announcements for Philippines RPCVs
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Service
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Restaurants
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Music
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Story Source:
LA Times
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