WEBVTT

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A female colleague asked me the other day,

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"What dose it feel like to know
that people think you are a weirdo?"

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(Laughter)

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And not wanting to admit that I didn't
know people thought I was a weirdo,

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I said: "Well, I think that weirdos
look at the world in a different way,

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and they try to see a little bit behind
that which everybody accepts."

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So if that's the definition of a weirdo,
then I'm happy to be called one.

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So, I arrived in Taiwan 12 years ago,

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and I learned about
the thing called "betel nut."

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And I was really surprised
and interested in this

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because I'd never come
across anything like this before.

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And, for the uninitiated, betel nut
is in fact a fruit, it's not a nut.

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It grows on the areca palm tree.

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And it actually is chewed all over Asia.

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It's very popular and very
common all over Asia.

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It is a stimulant.

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It contains something called arecoline,
which gives you a little bit of a rush.

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Chewing a betel nut is little bit like

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drinking three cups of espresso coffee
immediately after each other.

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It needs to be activated,

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so it gets wrapped in a leaf
which gives it some taste,

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and then on the inside of the leaf
they put some paste -

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a white lime paste which actually
activates the active ingredients.

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So, this then is a product
which doesn't look like very much.

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So how do you sell this product
to people who are driving by your store?

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Right?

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You could stand out there
and wave your betel nut

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but I don't think that
is going to work, all right?

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(Laughter)

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You could put some
bright lights on your store,

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but hey, every store in Taiwan
has bright lights on it,

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so that's not going to
help very much either.

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So, then somebody about
somewhere around the 1980s,

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hit on the idea of getting a pretty girl
wearing a skimpy outfit

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to sit by the roadside
in your store with the bright lights

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and entice passing drivers to come into -
and stop, and buy your betel nut.

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So, when I arrived in Taiwan,

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and I saw these glass boxes
by the side of the road

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with pretty girls sitting inside,

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what did I think?

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"Are they prostitutes?"

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(Laughter)

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"Is it so open here in Taiwan?"

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(Laughter)

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That was - Obviously everybody
has that thought at first.

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But I asked my foreigner friends:
"What is the story here?"

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They say, "No, no,
they just sell betel nut,

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they sell drinks, and they sell
cigarettes, and nothing else."

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I'm like, "Oh yeah, really. Right."

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(Laughter) OK.

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And when I asked the locals,

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they all said: "Oh, bad girls, bad girls.

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Don't even think about it.
Don't even talk about it. OK?

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No. They will do all kinds of things
in those betel nut stores of theirs."

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But then I started looking
at this, and I thought,

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"How does it work? I don't understand.

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How can a girl sitting in a glass box
by the side of the road brightly lit

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actually engage in sexual activity?"

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It doesn't actually make sense.

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And so I thought I wanted
to find out more about this.

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Being a documentary filmmaker, 
I'm interested in how things work

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and how people think 
and how people operate

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what's going on in the world.

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And so I decided I'm going
to look at this subject, research it,

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find out more about it,

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and try and tell this interesting
and fascinating and totally unique story.

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But, as any filmmaker will tell you,

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access to your subject
is the most important thing.

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And I found it very, very difficult
to connect up with the betel nut girls.

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They did not want to talk to me.

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They would generally -

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They actually don't want to
talk to anybody.

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They don't want to be photographed.

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They say things like:
"It's a shameful job."

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They say things like: "My boss won't
let you take photos of me or talk to me."

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Or they say: "My parents or my family
doesn't know that I do this job."

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But finally I met one girl
by the name of Jane.

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At that time she was called Ada,

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as Taiwanese girls sometimes do,
they change their names.

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And she was the first girl to agree
for me to take her photo,

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to interview her,
to tape her, to record her.

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And it was really a breakthrough for me.

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And I found that she was,
in many ways, a typical betel nut girl -

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dropped out of school; was doing
this job for several years already,

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complained about being
harassed by men, things like that.

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But in many ways she was also
against expectations.

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She was very smart,
and she spoke really well.

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And she had a very good unstanding

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about exactly what it is that she's doing.

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And in that way she helped
to introduce me to this business.

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And that, in fact, is one of
the very first photos I ever took

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of a betel nut girl with her consent.

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So, 
(Laughter)

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and that's about 2003 or 2004.

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So I managed to work out a strategy

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for dealing with the betel nut girls,
getting them to talk to me.

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I would become a customer first.

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I would buy coffee and cigarettes
from them, chit-chat,

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and then if I'd get a feeling
that they would be interested to talk,

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I'd get a female, Chinese-speaking
assistant to go with me,

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and we go and chat to them
and explain to them what I do.

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And I found that when you
approach them in that way,

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that all of us, everyone here
has a story to tell.

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that's why we are here today, right?
because we have a story to tell.

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And if you show a genuine
interest in someone's story,

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they will generally
be happy to tell it to you.

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So I wanted to make a film.
I couldn't get funding for it.

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The government wouldn't 
give money for a film

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that promotes this part
of the Taiwanese culture.

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But eventually it sort of transformed
itself into a photography project.

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2007, I had my first photo exhibition.

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And for some reason, that photo
exhibition just sort of hit a nerve.

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And the media picked it up
and went crazy about it.

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This foreigner, being in Taiwan,
and looking at betel nut girls,

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and showing Taiwanese people
something about their culture,

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and looking at it in a different way,

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the girls became very famous,

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and the stores down the road complained
that I hadn't photographed their girls,

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because these ones are getting more money.

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(Laughter)

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And so it went.

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Discovery did a program on them,

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and National Geographic did some stuff,

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and some of them ended up on TV shows.

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And it was really just interesting.

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As I say, it really just hit a nerve.

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I started to get a very good idea

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about what people in general
think betel nut girls are,

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and what the realities are.

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And I found that
they are different things.

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And I found that the betel nut girl issue

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has many, many layers;

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it has many, many sides;

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there are no simple and clear answers.

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And those are the kinds of things
that I enjoy dealing with,

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and having conversations about.

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It's all about the conversation.

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So let's see, what is
the betel nut girls business in?

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Is it prostitution?

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Is it girls who actually
are just prostitutes?

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Is the business run by gangsters?

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The girls are all exhibitionists?
They all like to show off?

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Or not?

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Is it some deep-seated and long-running
culture expression in Taiwan?

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How about female exploitation?

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Are these girls exploited or are they not?

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On the scale of exploitation
that perhaps all of us have to deal with,

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where do they fall?

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Is it maybe a form of female
empowerment? Who knows?

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Is it just a blight on the landscape
and a heath issue, a health problem?

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Is it just a job like any other?

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Or is it actually a form of urban art?

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So, the answer lies somewhere
along in that whole spectrum.

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So let's take the first one, prostitution.

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As I mentioned,

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doing business in a glass cage
is probably not going to actually happen.

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But I do believe that, in general,

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the business is not, in fact,
around prostitution.

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The business is around a pretty girl
sitting in a glass cage

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and selling betel nuts girls -
betel nut, um -

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(Laughter)

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Freudian slip there -

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(Laughter)

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etc., to passing motorists.

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Is it a business run by gangsters?

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Well, if you asked to take
some of those bosses' photos,

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they'll say: "Yeah,
but just don't show my face."

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So yes, there are certain elements.

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But I find these days, more and more,
the stores are actually run by women.

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So this woman in red is Ada's former boss.

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And she runs the business
completely by herself

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together with their Indonesian maid
who helps to prepare the betel nut there.

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Some of the other women like May,
for instance, manages the store.

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She manages three other girls
and the store.

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The boss almost never comes there.

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She's totally in charge
of the place there.

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Do the girls have some
element of exhibitionism to them?

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So, for sure, girls like to dress sexy.

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They have competitions
with each other to be sexy.

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So sometimes, in some places,
in some areas they will look like this,

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or they would look like this.

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And then all the girls
in the street complain

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because they have to compete against that.

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And they don't like it, all right?

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This, for instance, was quite
an interesting incident.

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One of the few times that I saw

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really sort of overt behavior
from a betel nut girl,

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because normally they're very prim.

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They're sexily dressed
but their behavior is very prim.

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This was during a typhoon
about three or four years ago.

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The girls were actually working
in the middle of it.

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I stopped and took photos.
It was amazing.

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This girl was like jumping
up and down all the time,

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and the wind's catching
her dress, lifting it up.

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After two or three times I'm like,

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"You're doing it on purpose,
aren't you? I could tell."

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(Laughter)

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But, generally speaking, as I say,
the manner is actually quite prim.

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It's that balance between being sexy
and yet being somehow innocent

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that I think men find interesting too.

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How about culture?

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So Taiwan,

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or betel nut has been used
in Taiwan for hundreds of years

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by the Aboriginal people,

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it's a part of their love rituals,
marriage rituals,

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and also just simply
hospitality, you know.

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When somebody visits your home,
you are supposed to give them betel nut.

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And there has been some research done.

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My friend Daniel did his PhD.

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And he had some really
interesting information about

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during the Japanese period, for instance,

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betel nut was completely
eradicated in Taiwan.

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Only the Aboriginal people
could have one or two trees in their area

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to keep going

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because the Japanese 
wanted to stamp out this habit.

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But after the Japanese left,
there was a resurgence in betel nut.

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And it became, to some extent, a very
Taiwanese thing to chew betel nut.

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It became part of the Taiwanese culture.

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And even more recently, we have
this idea of "Tai-Ke," right?

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which is very Taiwanese.

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It's very earthy; it's very down-to-earth.

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Of course, there's a large group
of people who call it low class.

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But people like this guy, for instance,

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he's the chairman of the betel nut
business association in Taoyuan area.

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I interviewed him, also from my phone.

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And yeah, he's very typical of that very
go-getter, businessman kind of guy,

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and who's prompting
his business in everything

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and very proud of being Taiwanese.

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The girls themselves have a certain
manner which I find quite interesting.

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Just a little bit of idea from the way
they talk, and the way they react.

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(Video) (Chatter)

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(Video ends)

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This is just to show again

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that the betel nut girls can sometimes
wear very little clothes

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but can actually be shy.

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And it's also about the boundaries
that they set up for themselves.

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I found that these girls
very strict, very clear

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about what they're prepared to show,

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and what they're prepared to do,

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and what they're not.

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And for instance,

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Ada, one day, came out
of her store when I stopped,

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and she was wearing her usual
pretty see-through top,

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so you could see her bra,
but with a short skirt.

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And when she stepped out, the wind
caught her skirt and sort of blew it up.

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And I thought, you know, nothing of it,

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but she was so ashamed,

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she crouched down
with her face in her hands

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because she was so embarrassed.

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I was really surprised by this,

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but I realized that there was
a boundary that had been crossed

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in that moment being I stopped there,

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and her skirt blew up
so that one could see her underwear.

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And so I found that really interesting.

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The girls have to deal with things like
harassment from customers, for sure.

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The guys will talk to them, they'll
try to get them to go out with them,

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things like that,

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or will try to touch them sometimes.

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And also, occasionally,
some of the girls complain

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that guys will stop their cars and will
actually expose themselves to the girls.

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So one of the girls, Shao Wen,
has this board on her wall,

00:13:25.906 --> 00:13:27.900
so she will write the registration number

00:13:27.900 --> 00:13:30.266
of any cars of any guys
that give her trouble

00:13:30.266 --> 00:13:33.629
so that next time when they come,
she just doesn't go out of her stand.

00:13:33.629 --> 00:13:35.805
Most of the stores
also have security cameras.

00:13:35.805 --> 00:13:37.247
And the word on the street is,

00:13:37.247 --> 00:13:42.074
if you give a betel nut girl trouble,
her boss will see to you.

00:13:42.074 --> 00:13:43.459
(Laughter) And then -

00:13:43.812 --> 00:13:46.559
Shao Wen, who actually
also owns her own store,

00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:51.804
also has something else that she can use
in case anybody gets frisky,

00:13:51.804 --> 00:13:54.267
though she does say
she's never had to use it.

00:13:54.712 --> 00:14:00.143
But then I also like to show
a little bit more closely sometimes,

00:14:00.143 --> 00:14:06.587
show the girl and give you
the opportunity to stop and look,

00:14:06.587 --> 00:14:08.807
because normally
you'd just drive past, right?

00:14:08.807 --> 00:14:11.672
All your interactions
with betel nut girl would be fleeting,

00:14:11.672 --> 00:14:13.097
would be just driving past -

00:14:13.097 --> 00:14:16.323
those of you who don't buy betel nuts
from betel nut girls.

00:14:16.903 --> 00:14:20.229
So just looking at her
and seeing this girl,

00:14:20.229 --> 00:14:22.157
this is like two o'clock in the morning,

00:14:22.157 --> 00:14:24.357
and you can see
the hours are getting long.

00:14:24.531 --> 00:14:27.861
It tells you something, it shows you
something about the person.

00:14:27.998 --> 00:14:29.725
Then, others, for instance,

00:14:29.725 --> 00:14:32.774
you can see there's a friendliness,
there's a happiness -

00:14:32.774 --> 00:14:34.925
I have not met any betel nut girls

00:14:34.925 --> 00:14:38.443
who complain about
being coerced into doing this job

00:14:38.443 --> 00:14:41.959
or coerced into wearing
clothes in a particular way.

00:14:41.959 --> 00:14:44.102
The turnover in the stores is very high.

00:14:44.102 --> 00:14:47.556
If she doesn't like what her boss
wants her to do, then she just goes.

00:14:47.556 --> 00:14:48.922
She goes to the next store.

00:14:48.922 --> 00:14:50.514
There's not a problem with that.

00:14:50.514 --> 00:14:51.805
OK, about the health issue,

00:14:51.805 --> 00:14:53.565
I would just like to say very clearly

00:14:53.565 --> 00:14:56.001
that chewing betel nut
is not good for your health.

00:14:56.001 --> 00:15:00.006
It's a very strong part

00:15:00.006 --> 00:15:03.526
of getting esophageal and mouth cancer

00:15:03.526 --> 00:15:04.983
for people who use it a lot.

00:15:04.983 --> 00:15:06.362
You do have to chew it a lot.

00:15:06.362 --> 00:15:09.642
It's not like you chew one and you
are going to have cancer tomorrow.

00:15:09.838 --> 00:15:14.152
And especially when combined with
cigarettes, it's definitely a major issue.

00:15:16.152 --> 00:15:19.092
So in that part I want to say very clearly

00:15:19.092 --> 00:15:22.622
that I support the troops
but I don't support the war.

00:15:22.622 --> 00:15:24.323
My issue is about the girls.

00:15:24.323 --> 00:15:26.793
And most importantly then,

00:15:26.793 --> 00:15:28.102
I just want to say

00:15:28.102 --> 00:15:33.672
when you look at the girl's
interaction with the customers there ...

00:15:33.672 --> 00:15:35.282
girls getting bored...

00:15:35.282 --> 00:15:38.102
Oh, of course, I always take
some photos to the girls

00:15:38.102 --> 00:15:39.982
to show them or to give to them.

00:15:39.982 --> 00:15:41.092
They like that.

00:15:41.452 --> 00:15:45.672
And - just going to skip through -

00:15:51.252 --> 00:15:52.262
OK.

00:15:52.262 --> 00:15:55.803
And so, I think the conclusion
I want to come to

00:15:55.803 --> 00:16:01.792
is that this business
has many, many layers,

00:16:01.792 --> 00:16:03.332
and just as with life.

00:16:03.332 --> 00:16:07.226
Somebody asked me before I started,
when I was preparing for this,

00:16:07.226 --> 00:16:09.662
they said, "So, what is
this idea worth spreading?"

00:16:09.662 --> 00:16:11.977
You know, the TED
"ideas worth spreading."

00:16:11.977 --> 00:16:15.392
"What is the idea worth spreading
about the betel nut girls of Taiwan?"

00:16:15.392 --> 00:16:17.611
I thought that's actually
a very good question.

00:16:17.611 --> 00:16:21.520
And so what I want to say is
that in today's world,

00:16:21.520 --> 00:16:26.412
we are living in a world
that is increasingly polarized.

00:16:26.412 --> 00:16:30.585
We are constantly being told
that things are black or white.

00:16:30.585 --> 00:16:34.718
With the information age,
we have more and more information,

00:16:34.718 --> 00:16:37.502
but somehow the conversation
is getting lost,

00:16:37.502 --> 00:16:39.512
the nuances is getting lost.

00:16:39.512 --> 00:16:43.449
So, what I do with the betel nut girls
is to look at all the layers -

00:16:43.449 --> 00:16:46.681
realize that there's a spectrum
from black to white

00:16:46.681 --> 00:16:48.921
on all those issues that I mentioned.

00:16:48.921 --> 00:16:52.948
And it's not all good and all bad
on any one of those.

00:16:52.948 --> 00:16:55.815
And I think if we can keep
the conversation going -

00:16:55.815 --> 00:16:57.406
I have people come to me and say:

00:16:57.406 --> 00:17:00.095
"I think you should stop
taking photos of betel nut girls

00:17:00.095 --> 00:17:03.522
because it's a bad image for Taiwan"
or "bad for them" or whatever it is,

00:17:03.522 --> 00:17:05.580
I'm happy to be part of that conversation.

00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:07.791
That conversation doesn't have to end.

00:17:07.791 --> 00:17:10.094
And while we are having conversations,

00:17:10.094 --> 00:17:13.412
we can find the best solutions

00:17:13.412 --> 00:17:16.112
to the problems that face us
like climate change,

00:17:16.112 --> 00:17:18.002
like leaking government information,

00:17:18.002 --> 00:17:19.492
like going to war, you know,

00:17:19.492 --> 00:17:21.544
all the things we are dealing with today.

00:17:21.544 --> 00:17:23.625
Because while you
are having a conversation,

00:17:23.625 --> 00:17:25.942
while you are talking,
you cannot swing a sword.

00:17:25.942 --> 00:17:31.743
So, I'd like to invite all of you
to consider the grey areas.

00:17:31.743 --> 00:17:34.517
Consider all the lovely layers
that there are in the world

00:17:34.517 --> 00:17:37.768
and not just accept
the given on any one side.

00:17:37.768 --> 00:17:39.846
And let's all be "weirdos" together.

00:17:39.846 --> 00:17:40.850
Thank you.

00:17:40.850 --> 00:17:42.616
(Applause)