The ‘Binlan’ Girls of Taiwan

(Betel Nut Beauties)

Scantily-clad Sexy Girls in Glass Cubicle

Like a page taken from the Red Light Districts of Hamburg, Amsterdam or Rotterdam, a recent cultural phenomenon is making its presence felt along the streets of Taiwan. From the neon-lit cubicles scantily-clad beauties solicit their trade. You would immediately be mistaken they are prostitutes or sex workers plying sex. Surprisingly, they are only selling betel nuts.

It’s often said that it’s not it’s not what you sell that counts but how you sell. The whole crux of the matter lies in the strategy of marketing. Basically, everyone of us is a salesperson, whether it’s an idea or a thing, an emotion such as love or an appeal. Everything is translated in your ability to putting it across effectively to be accepted by the public at large.

In Taiwan, betel nut also known as areca nut, is the second largest agricultural product, consumed as in most Asian countries as a stimulant. When laced with lime and chewed with betel leaf it is a popular drug stimulant. Long distance truck drivers, looking for a quick pick-me-up and other motorists were the target market and selling booths conveniently lined all feeder roads leading to major highways.

That scenario has given way to a glamorous strategy of marketing. Now selling booths or cubicles (once only served by old women) are manned by young pretty and sexy “Binlan” girls clad scantily only in bikinis, even in the cold winter environment. Old women who used to ply the trade are no longer on the scene. “Binlan” is a Mandarin word for betel. Glass booths make their presence everywhere, recognizable at night by strips of green florescence light. Evidently, sex sells. Motorists are attracted to buy not only betel nuts, but also cigarettes and soft drinks as plied by such “Binlan” girls in provocative outfits.

Their popularity has given rise to much controversy and public outcry has from time to time forced upon political pressure over its control and management. It’s believed that many a “Binlang” girl is a runaway kid of poverty or sex-abused background or may even be drug addicted and the operation controlled by Chinese mafia. There are an estimated 60,000 kiosks employing thousands of girls who are reputed to earn more than $1,000 per month.

Whatever the position, as in sex prostitution, for which Taiwan is nonetheless as well-known as Thailand, “Binlan” girls will continue to play their serving role. To them this is just a normal job & in no way feel themselves to be exploited.

In retrospect, on my first visit to Taipei in 1972, I was awed by the visual publicity of large signboards displaying VD Clinics or Hospitals. The signboards may visibly have disappeared, but the urban seedy side of life is as vibrant as ever.

Now how about this, figurines of “Binlan” girls as replacements to do the trade? Unbelievable that man has all the ingenuity to come out with such a contraption! But will customers be satisfied? Nothing like the real thing?

Paul Chong

A Chinese by Descent

An Australian by Consenty

Thursday, December 8, 2005 @ 4.35 am

]]> http://thecomicalhat.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/monday-morning-lift-off/ Mon, 11 May 2009 04:15:19 +0000 Teddy de Burca Jnr http://thecomicalhat.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/monday-morning-lift-off/

• If I were to form a fab-four tribute band in Vietnam, I would christen it The Betel Nuts… that would be clever wouldn’t it? It would work on sooooooo many levels… well at least two anyway. Sadly these guys are Australian + are unacquainted with the joys of a good Betel Nut chewing session with a posse of nonagenarian biddies and so they called their band The Beatels, which works on one level: a misspelling of The Beatles — and not a very clever one at that. Nevertheless I can’t wait to turn on, tune in, drop out for the “psychedelic set”. 
• Underweight teenage jockeys racing horses…   do the parents know where they are on Saturday afternoon?
• For our Irish readers — that’s yourself MichaelKellykelly and of course Mr. + Mrs. Teddy de Burca Jnr. — you can see a short travel article 12 steps to Hanoi by yours truly in the latest issue of Hotpress Magazine.  
• For those of you who suffer from queue-rage this article offers little practical advice or solace for your soul — we already know lots of Vietnamese people don’t… anticipate having to queue up and how that rankles those Johnny Foreigners who just love a nicely formed, orderly queue that reminds them of their military days back home. Far more useful would be an article titled Top 5 ways to ensure you get to the head of the queue in Vietnam.  ’Method 1‘, for example, would be create a diversion by asking your friend to cause a scene outside wherever you’re queuing by cycling around on a bicycle in their birthday suit shouting flibberty jibbet… it’s known as um… the Hanoi Diversion I believe.  Without the benefit of trial runs or the slightest shred of evidence, I say, with complete confidence that this has an 85% chance of success.  

No Nuts Now!

Never get between a man and his nuts. A Papua New Guinean, Michael Langan Sapri, has been sentenced to 12 years jail after killing his wife with a kick to her stomach after she made a comment about his nuts. When Mr Sapri couldn’t find his betel nuts he confronted his wife. Her response went something like this “you should chew one of your testicles rather than a betel nut.” Evidently chewing on a betel nut acts as a natural mild stimulant whilst teasing a man about his nuts acts as a rather violent one.