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If you ever take a taxi in Taiwan, you'll no doubt experience the strange scent of "betel nut." Betel nuts are the seeds of the betel palm which are usually prepared by having a slit cut in them into which a slaked lime (CaO) paste is added. They are then wrapped in a leaf. People -- usually drivers of public transportation -- chew them and (despite laws outlawing such behavior) spit the blood-colored juice everywhere -- in the street, on buildings, on the backs of cars that get in their way, etc. If you can speak the local languages (Chinese or Taiwanese), the driver of one of the aforementioned taxis might offer you a betel nut and tell you something about "Taiwan's culture." (It's probably a good idea to thank them for the offer, but politely refuse!) The nuts come 20 per box, usually with a picture of a topless or scantily-clad girl decorating the box. They are often sold by "betel nut beauties" (bin1 lang2 xi1 shi1) -- young girls (some aged only 16 or 17) in miniskirts and ultra-high heels sitting on elevated stools behind glass windows (see below). The going price is 20 for NT$50 or 3 for NT$100. 3 for NT$100?! Well, I hear that for NT$100, at some places you can get one betel nut and squeeze two nipples on the betel nut beauty. (A Taiwanese woman once wrote e-mail to me denying that this is true, but I have seen with my own eyes a TV interview with a betel nut babe describing this activity.) Some awesome photos have recently arrived. They will be posted on a separate page ASAP! (and in the hospital beds)... Betel nut not only stains the lips and teeth of the users. Their spit stains something almost anywhere you look. If you chew betel nut long enough, it may even cause oral cancer. The extent of the destruction caused by betel nut goes even further. The farming of this cash crop has created many other problems for Taiwan. The roots of the betel palm don't hold much soil, and erosion occurs at a rapid rate. A lot of these trees are grown in mountainous areas, and serious landslides have occurred in these places, especially since the 9/21/99 earthquake. It is said that the demand for betel nut in Taiwan is so great that it must be smuggled in from other countries. Yikes! What a culture! |
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 http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/8852/taiwan1.html |
  Tube top, miniskirt, dangerously high platform shoes... |
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"KTV" business cards like the one at left -- some even more revealing -- can be found all over the place: on car windshields, on motorcycle seats, on sidewalks, and in my wallet! (A Taiwanese woman -- the same one mentioned in the "Betel nut" section above -- once sent me e-mail denying this and saying that I had something wrong with me because I notice the "few" that exist. Ha! You can guess how long a car has been parked in one spot by counting the number of these things stuck on the windows!) KTV actually means "karaoke television" -- a form of entertainment popular in Taiwan and Japan which seems (unfortunately) to be spreading to the rest of the world. People sit in front of a large TV screen and sing along with the music while girls strut and sway on the video and the lyrics are shown as subtitles. Many of the KTVs in Taiwan are a little bit different. While operating under the guise of KTVs, these places are actually rinky-dink wannabe whorehouses. For outrageous fees, you may actually be able to sit next to a girl who is wearing only underwear while singing pop tunes! Wow! If you want to touch her, it'll cost you. The ads often imply that there will be much more, but I have heard that will only happen for tens of thousands of NT dollars. (As of 8/10/2002, US$1 = NT$33.67, so NT$10,000 = US$297!) (Another aside: the same Taiwanese woman mentioned above also said in her e-mail that this was another lie. Although I haven't visited these establishments personally, I have both foreign and Taiwanese friends who have, and they provided me with the details. Plus, I see the arrests of semi-nude girls and women on TV often enough to have a reasonable idea about what goes on in there.) |
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From an overseas Taiwanese: "I think [the] bandwagon mentality is fundamental to Taiwanese mentality. When something is profitable or in fashion, everybody jumps on it. It has happened in textile/clothing, plastic products/toys, personal computers, and many industries. ... One of my pet peeves is seeing grown up women (in their mid-to-late 20's) trying to be cutesy with cartoon decorations ("Hello Kitty" credit cards, Mickey Mouse, etc.)" If you think that's bad, you should see male "gangsters" in their 30s and 40s driving around in sports cars decorated with Hello Kitty! Hello Yucky! |
One of the most frequently heard words in Taiwan (besides "Viagra" -- Oh, wait! That's just in today's news!) is "biàn tài" or "pervert." With their very ambivalent attitudes about sexuality, it's no wonder if indeed there may actually be a large number of sexually dysfunctional and/or deprived human beings in Taiwan.
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TRAFFIC |
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