DOCUMENTARY: Binlang

TAIWAN. Chewing the mixture of areca nut and betel leaf is a custom which dates back thousands of years from South Asia to the Pacific. 

The areca nut and the betel nut leaf were combined together into one psychoactive drug able to create an addiction. 

Studies proved that frequent and long use of the betel nut highgly increases the risk of developing oral cancer. 

Uniquely just in Taiwan the traders started to hire beautiful young women in sexy outfits, called betel nut beauties, in order to attract customers, usually mid age men but also the younger generations, and keep selling the nuts, here called binlang. 

The betel nut beauty had soon become an icon in taiwanese culture and the vindow shops are found all over the county, even though they are now disappearing from bigger cities, where they only survive in the suburbs. 

Old style vendors are still the majority of it but don't stand out in the streets as much as the colorful ones where the beauties work.