Betel Nut

If you've arrived in Taiwan you may notice a lot of people chewing and spitting horrid red saliva. When I first seen this I merely thought they were chewing tobacco. Later I was told that its what the locals call betel-nut or 槟榔 (Binlang).

What it is is an areca nut wrapped in a betel leaf which you chew, the feeling (what I've been told) is similar to a caffeine rush. The majority of people I see chewing these are builders, truck drivers and anyone else who have to work long hours.
   You can find betel-nut all around Taiwan, on most streets you'll see florescent lights advertising betel-nut. They also sell beer and cigarette too, but the main income i guess comes from betel-nut. If your lucky you might even seen one the many "Betel-nut beauty's"

Now when I first seen these scantly glad women I mistook them to be prostitutes. I was later informed they are selling betel-nut. Now I could write a whole post on "Betel-nut beauty's" which I will in a later post. But in short it stems from competition between betel-nut sellers, and they started to use attractive women to entice the mainly male buyers to buy from them. Anyway this has evolved over the years, and you can see the women have started to wear less clothes to attract more business. One misconception is these women are used, I have been told that some make more than the average lawyer here so all I can say is don't judge a book by it's cover until you read a little deeper.

The major reason why I don't try betel nut is the secretion can stain your teeth ( Like the image above) and excessive chewing has been linked to an increase in the chances of  oral cancer. So my advice is give it a go, but don't get hooked on it.