Mong Shuan was just 16 years old when she turned to an unconventional source of income: selling betel nuts at a small stall in the north of the country. Taiwan. This stimulant, a small oblong fruit derived from the areca palm, is chewed by millions of people in Asia. Over the next three years, Mong would work six days a week for the equivalent of about $670 a month. A little bonus was added for dressing provocatively to attract male customers.
His job was to slice the nuts and add a pinch of slaked lime (or calcium hydroxide, which increases the body’s absorption of the stimulant they contain), before carefully wrapping them in a leaf. To achieve sales goals, betel nut “must be delicious.” she told CNN in an email. But hoping to attract more business, Mong would wear her long hair dyed red, a little makeup and a schoolgirl outfit in the style of the Japanese anime character Sailor Moon. “The most important thing is how you look,” she added.
Sellers like Mong, who quit her job in February, are known locally as “betel nut beauties.” The phenomenon emerged in the late 1960s, when the Shuangdong Betel Nut Stand, a stand located in rural central Taiwan, successfully marketed its products through a campaign centered on its “Shuangdong Daughters.” “. At the turn of the 21st century, tens of thousands of neon-lit stands dotting the island’s roadsides and industrial neighborhoods were run by young women.
Hoping to document the phenomenon, photographer Constanze Han spent a month in 2022 on the highway linking the island’s capital Taipei to the southern city of Kaohsiung, encountering betel nut beauties along the way . Her fascination with women dates back to summer trips to her grandfather’s courtyard house on the outskirts of Taipei.
“I loved driving there because there were betel nut girls,” she recalled in a telephone interview. “As a kid, I didn’t really understand (who they were). My family had been to Amsterdam once and we passed the red light district, so I figured it was the same thing.
Although scenes of scantily clad women in glass booths may resemble brothels, the sale of betel nuts is not widely linked to prostitution in Taiwan. In fact, women rarely leave their stands except to approach drivers in high heels. Still, the very existence of provocative betel beauties seemed odd in “a quiet, conservative culture” like Taiwan’s, said Han, who hoped her project could help dispel some of the stereotypes women faced.
“(People with) ingrained ideas of respectability, without really knowing or having interacted with these girls, might say, ‘Oh, these are girls from the wrong side of the tracks,'” she said. But in reality, Han added, “they all seemed quite balanced and responsible.”
The photographer, who grew up between Hong Kong and New York and worked in Latin America, has always been interested in the jobs women do to survive, regardless of the stigma associated with them. She was inspired by the work of Susan Meiselasincluding the 1970s photo series “Carnival Strippers,” captured women working hard and long hours performing stripteases at New England carnivals.
“I always end up attracted to women,” said Han, who spent time getting to know her subjects before asking to take their photos. “The conversation part, where there are no photographs, is a big part of it. I end up having more honest conversations with women and feel more curious about the nuances of their experiences.
Change habits
Han photographed 12 women, mostly in their late teens or early 20s, except for one slightly older subject named Xiao Hong, who dressed more conservatively as she prepares the product with bright blue gloves at a betel nut stand in New Taipei. The others appear bathed in the neon light of their stands or are filmed looking out of the windows; a woman’s face is distorted by the reflection of the busy streets outside. The photographer spent hours capturing small, quiet moments that reveal the mundane nature of his work.
Han’s experience as a former fashion editor shines through in the photos, which often look like they were staged or ripped from the pages of a glossy magazine. But it’s important that her images are “as honest as possible,” she said.
Women typically arrived at work in their regular clothes and changed into more revealing clothes in the cubicles, Han said. Sometimes the owners encouraged them to dress sexier, even though some of Han’s subjects said they would have done so anyway because it helps them sell more products.
One of the women photographed by Han, Ju Ju, wears red lingerie as she looks out from her strobe-lit booth in Taoyuan City. She started selling betel nuts to make ends meet, the photographer said, adding that job opportunities were limited for the young mother, who did not have a higher education. But Ju Ju has since learned to appreciate the stability of her job. She has now been promoted to manager of two stalls and hopes to buy her own stall one day, Han added.
Nevertheless, fears that women are victims of exploitation persist in Taiwan and have resulted in some regulation over the past two decades. In 2002, for example, the local government of Taoyuan County has implemented a strict dress code that requires vendors to cover their breasts, buttocks and stomachs.
Although it is traditionally served by Taiwan’s indigenous communities at large gatherings, consumption of the addictive stimulant is also in sharp decline. The island’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, which notes that users are 28 times more likely develop oral cancer than non-users – indicates that fewer than 1 in 16 Taiwanese men chewed betel nuts in 2018, a decline of more than 43% from 2012.
Thus, Han’s photos document an aspect of Taiwanese life that may eventually cease to exist. She hopes viewers “can view it as an interesting phenomenon without too much judgment.”
“I hope (the photo series) will open people up to a different idea of – or curiosity about – Taiwan as a whole.”
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