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Taiwanese Chewing Gum

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Recoiling with disgust is a normal reaction for the first-time visitor to Taiwan when he or she encounters a blood-red splotch on the street. A familiarity with Taiwan\'s bad habit, and spotting the cud of fibres amid the red splotch proves the splat is not tubercular phlegm or the aftermath of a gruesome crack-up. The mess is expectorated betel nut juice.

Bringing in more than US$440 million annually, betel nuts are Taiwan\'s second largest cash crop, surpassed only by rice. Nevertheless, demand outstrips supply. Smugglers import betel nuts from other Asian countries. The crop\'s popularity among farmers has exploded exponentially over the past three decades. A Council of Agriculture (COA) representative attributed betel nut\'s phenomenal ascension to its fast return rate of 100 to 200 percent per acre.

Betel nut palms are easier to grow and harvest than other crops. More than twice the acreage used for banana and tea groves combined is dedicated to betel nut farming, according to the COA. Farmers eager to make quick profits deforest large tracts of land to keep up with the demand for green gold. Growing betel nuts requires an inordinate amount of water, more than reservoirs contain, allegedly.

Moreover, a monoculture of tall palms with shallow roots sets the stage for environmental disasters. Typhoons of intensities that wouldn\'t have wreaked as much damage in the past now cause erosion, mudslides and flooding. Thirty-one people died when Typhoon Herb drenched the island. Experts and locals blamed the betel nut groves. Farmers continue to sacrifice environmental and human safety in favour of financial gains.

The tall, straight tree trunks capped with curved green palm fronds and nut clusters hanging from the crown fit the quintessential image that leaps into our minds\' eyes when someone utters, "The Tropics." After the green nuts, about the size of olives, are harvested, they are distributed to 500,000-some stalls across the island. The stalls can be simple one-man or one-woman pavement operations requiring only a stool, a display case and a coin box. Or betel nut stalls can be mobile Plexiglas rooms wheeled up as close as possible to the road. Nubile women, usually two, always beautiful beyond reason, sell betel nuts to males whose sexual fantasies are fanned by the girls\' skirts that are no wider than belts. Flashing lights and a logo of two betel nuts, suggestive of women\'s breasts, snuggled in a leaf lure members of the red-lip tribe off the road for Taiwanese chewing gum.

The majority of betel nut vendors are women, not only because they attract the predominately male customers, but also because preparing nuggets-with-a-zing requires manual dexterity women inherently possess. A vendor first cuts an elliptical pepper leaf in half lengthwise and she removes the tough middle vein. Next she spreads a thin, thin layer of alkaline paste on the leaf half. Then she wraps the leaf around a nut and tucks the pointy end of the leaf into itself. A sandwich bag full of these cute narcotic bundles enough for about half a day\'s serious chain chewing costs US$3.00.

Taxi drivers are notorious nutters, so it was no surprise to me that when I got in a cab the metallic reek of betel nut enveloped me. Crammed against the emergency brake handle was a cup full of blood-red spit and fibres. This particular driver was especially jacked up. He sang along with a Chinese love song blaring out of the radio and simultaneously ratcheted with the taxi dispatcher and jockeyed from lane to lane. He beat a tattoo on his steering wheel. His eyes flashed here, there, to the rear-view mirror, there, here. Red lights had no meaning. He sped past my destination.

Too flustered to speak Mandarin, I shouted, "Here it is!" and pounded on the car window. He jammed the brakes. Cars behind us screeched and honked. I jumped outta that cab mighty fast without aid of ingested stimulants. Not that I\'m against recreational drugs.

Tom and I had each bought one chaw.

"How do you feel?" he asked after a moment of bovine chewing.

"I\'m smiling on the inside and the outside." We flapped our crimson lips effusively and bought doo-dads we didn\'t need. The Cheshire effect had been disappointingly short-lived. We bought more nuts.

An equal opportunity addictive substance that can hook users within four to seven months, betel nuts are popular among blue-collar workers holding down two mind-deadening jobs, businesspeople working inhumanly long hours and students trying to stay awake studying. Like American teenagers who, when caught drinking, say, lamely, "Well, at least I\'m not smoking marijuana or shooting heroine," Taiwan\'s red-toothed teens claim betel nuts are Mother Earth\'s natural alternative to drinkin\' booze and smokin\' cancer cylinders. Their reasoning is dead wrong.

The cancer rate among betel nut users is double that of smokers. Rising betel nut use has been linked to a fifty-percent increase in the number of oral cancer cases in a recent six-year period. This rate is nearly three times higher than the rate of oral cancer in America. In addition to the health problems, the betel nut industry is rife with gangsters who hire girls under eighteen to sell the nuts and sexual services. That betel nut stalls are a front for teen prostitution is an open secret.

Social, environmental and human loss has inevitably led to bombastic headlines.

"The Government Declares War on Betel Nuts." "Betel Nut Chewing Erodes National Power." "July 1, Betel Nut D-Day." "December 3 is Anti-Betel Nut Day." "It\'s time for the government to eradicate the scourge once and for all."

Predictably, for a few days law enforcers levy fines on unlicensed vendors and on betel nut vendors whose stalls encroach upon public walkways. Meanwhile, Taiwan\'s 2.4 million members of the red-lip tribe chew and spit without fear of penalty.

The scourge is legal.

Excerpted from Beth Fowler\'s travel book, "Half Baked in Taiwan" available online at xlibris.com anywhere on the planet and in U.S. bookstores

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