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Betel nut girls and unrequited desire exposed

By Lauren Mack
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Thursday, Sep 01, 2005, Page 15

Betel nut beauties by Wu Chiung-hua. PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTIST

Cruising down Feng Nan Street in Kaohsiung, Wu Chiung-hua (吳瓊華) stops her car in front of the Venice Betel Nut stand. She is searching for betel nut beauties to interview. As she chews on a betel nut, Wu, an artist, chats with the owner, who tells her the girl that works the morning shift has the day off.

With her brown wavy shoulder-length hair, sheer purple top, and black high-heeled boots adorned with buckles, Wu can almost pass for a betel nut seller, as she struts around the small glass booth and snaps photos for an ongoing pro-ject featuring betel nut girls.

Access like this has not always been easy for Wu, whose latest exhibit about betel nut girls opened recently at the National Taiwan Arts Education Institute.

She has spent the last 10 years researching betel nut culture, interviewing betel nut beauties, and photographing the girls in action. Wu has faced frightened girls and hostile owners wary of her research. Once, an irate owner confiscated her film and chased her away from his stand.

"There was a time when I thought about stopping this topic," Wu said. Her desire to help the girls through art, kept her going. "The real me is connected to the issue of betel nut girls. Through this research I have become young again. I've rediscovered my youth. I've been liberated."

Until Sept. 13, the public can view for free the numerous screen prints, photos, and artifacts

depicting Taiwan's betel nut

culture at the exhibit entitled Taiwan's Betel Nut, Wu Chung-hua Betel Nut Show Girls Compound, Decorative Arts Exhibition.

The sexually-charged exhibit purposely clashes with the museum's conservative scholarly neighbors. Jianguo High School is across the street. The school's statue of Chiang Kai-shek stares directly at the museum's former guard house, which has tempora-rily been transformed into a betel nut stand complete with pink neon lights. Inside the walls are adorned with dozens of color photos of breasts in all shapes and sizes. "Putting this exhibition in a traditional area like this is like throwing a rock into a pond. When you throw a rock into a pond, it makes ripples," Wu said.

"When Taiwan was a poor country, we could only look at Barbie dolls in store windows. They were something we wanted but we couldn't have," Wu said, referring to the first panel, which features a doll in a purple bikini. "This is similar to the way men look at the betel nut beauties inside their glass boxes."

Some people who have seen the exhibit have found parts of it unsettling. "I think there are some pictures that are not appropriate but she [Wu] has done her work with good intentions," said Chang Chun-Chieh (張俊傑), the former director-general of the National Arts Education Instititute.

National Taiwan Arts Education Institute (國立台灣藝術教育館), 47, Nanhai Rd, Taipei (台北市南海路47號). Open Monday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Call (02) 2311 0574.
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