TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Lee sits on a bar stool in a plexiglass box near a highway offramp in central Taiwan. It’s late afternoon and the 29-year-old is dressed in a red negligee, a fake rose planted firmly ...

Mong Shuan was just 16 when she turned to an unconventional source of income: selling betel nuts from a little stall in northern Taiwan. The stimulant, a small, oblong fruit derived from areca palms, ...

A deep red or purple smile is a common sight in many parts of Asia and the Pacific. But what’s behind it? This red residue is the telltale sign of the betel nut, which is chewed by millions of people ...

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Lee sits on a bar stool in a plexiglass box near a highway offramp in central Taiwan. It’s late afternoon and the 29-year-old is dressed in a red negligée, a fake rose planted between ...

Betel nut prices fluctuate frequently. In this stall in Port Moresby they sell for one kina per nut (20 pence) - Torbjörn Wester/The Telegraph David Taim, a civil servant in Port Moresby, the capital ...

2001-03-18 04:00:00 PDT Tashi, Taiwan-- It was just after the shift change at a betel nut stand near the entrance ramp to Highway 3, southwest of Taipei. Huang Jin-yu had changed out of her work ...

While I was in a South Florida garden years ago, my eye was caught by brilliant flecks of color dotting the closely cropped grass. They were the red fruit of a 25-foot-tall betel nut palm that cast ...

Tourists passing through the streets of Taiwan may notice an unusual cultural phenomenon. It looks like a scene from Amsterdam’s Red Light district, with scantily-clad girls soliciting customers from ...

If you have ever got the chance to travel across Hunan Province in China, there is one local specialty that you will find it hard to ignore: the areca nut, or binlang in Chinese. The areca nut is ...