Around 9am, Wu Sheng-kuang (
On the wall is a card with employee regulations: makeup must be worn at all times when working; employees should clock in only after changing and putting on makeup. After the girls arrive, Wu rolls up the iron doors and switches on the neon lights of his glass booth. His shop, Hot China Girls (
The shop is right next to the highway entrance going from Hsinchu to Taipei, a perfect location for the glass showcases from which the betel nut beauties peddle their wares. Along a 100m stretch of road there are seven betel nut stands, each decorated with colorful neon. In between there are stalls selling Hsinchu specialties such as rice noodles and meatballs. Wu owns two of these stalls and another betel nut stall called Miss China (中國小姐), only a few meters away from Hot China Girls.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSRONG, TAIPEI TIMES
Wu has been running betel nut stands for more than 10 years, and says he was one of the first to set up at this location. From the start, he decided that girls were to be a major part of the operation. "I knew that the girls would be the key to my business, so I treat them very well," he said.
Wu said he pays the girls NT$40,000 a month. He also buys them sexy costumes and platform shoes. "If the girls wear clothes they don't like, they feel unhappy and are less motivated. This is bad for business," Wu said.
It is a woman's world inside the glass betel nut stand. The small counter is covered with cosmetics: Japanese eye-shadow cases, shiny colored lipsticks and mascara. On the side in the small cabinet, there are piles of sexy costumes. They are all very skimpy so they don't take up much space.
Wu does not show up at the betel nut stand very often, spending most of his time upstairs preparing the betel nuts, but keeping an eye on the girls and business generally through surveillance cameras. "If there is a man inside the stall, customers will not usually approach the stall," he said.
When reporting this story, Wu asked our male photographer not to stand inside the stall for too long. He said to me: "You're a girl. It's OK for you to stay here." This was simply for the good of his business.
Ting-ting (
Like her work mates Hsiao-yeh (
According to Wu, the girls at his stand can enjoy the most luxurious treatment. They don't need to prepare the betel nuts themselves, as all the nuts are prepared and packed before hand. All they need to do is welcome customers who pull up by the stall. They are basically sales girls. "If you sell more than NT$10,000 a day, you get a bonus of NT$300," Wu said.
Pretty girls have become so much part of the business that Wu is willing to spend between NT$1,000 to NT$3,000 per dress for the girls. Despite this expense, Wu says he still manages a net profit of at least NT$100,000 a month. And that is just from Hot China Girls.
Hsiao-min, 19, a student at a technical college, also takes an afternoon shift. She wears a long yellow dress that is slit almost up to her waist. Hsiao-yeh, 18, her companion on the shift, wears a white tank top and mini-skirt.
Both Hsiao-yeh and Hsiao-min's clothes were designed by Annie (who declined to give her last name), the owner and designer of Annie's Hot Girl Costume Workshop (
Every day, Annie drives her van, stopping at betel nut stands across the island promoting her betel nut beauty costumes. In six years, she has become a major clothing supplier for Wu's betel nut stall. "On average, I stop at around five to 10 betel nut stands a day, showing samples to the owners," Annie said. She said she is the only supplier who provides designs specifically targeted at betel nuts girls.
Annie, who has many friends working in the betel nut industry, said that her clothes gave the girls more style than those purchased at the night markets. Her business has now expanded to providing clothes for girls working in clubs and bars and for girls working in motor racing venues such as Lungtan in Taoyuan County.
For the girls like Hsiao-yeh and Hsiao-min, apart from the long hours standing in high heels, this is not a bad job. You can wear fancy clothes at work and listen to your favorite music. Once in a while, admirers give them red envelopes of money, flowers or expensive gifts. On the counter, there is a big bouquet of flowers sent by an admirer of Hsiao-yeh's. Hsiao-min is even luckier. She was given the latest pink Panasonic mobile phone by an admirer. Last month, she also received a gold necklace.
"Some of the customers have become friends and sometimes they'll even buy you a lunch box," said Hsiao-yeh. When faced with customers who want more than just betel nuts, Hsiao-yeh said they are sent packing: "We just give them a cold look and say we don't sell that here."
For customers who think they can take advantage, Wu said they might find themselves beaten up. "We make them apologize and they must give the girls a considerable sum of money in a red envelope," Wu said.
Wu acknowledged that some stands had girls who wore no underwear or who were available for sexual services, but insisted that his stalls had nothing to do with that aspect of the business. "Our main business is to sell betel nuts and the most important part is that you have to have pretty girls," he said.
"Besides, those who offer sex are mostly the ugly girls," he added.
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
“Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge.’ We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realize. Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block
Pratas Island, or Dongsha (東沙群島) had lain off the southern coast of China for thousands of years with no one claiming it until 1908, when a Japanese merchant set up a facility there to harvest guano. The Americans, then overlords of the Philippines, disturbed to learn of Japanese expansion so close to their colony, alerted the Manchu (Qing) government. That same year the British government asked the Manchus who owned the island, which prompted the Manchu government to make a claim, according to South China Sea expert Bill Hayton. In 1909 the government of Guangdong finally got around to sending
RSS