Only in Taiwan

It occurred to me this morning that I had intended this blog to be mostly about experiences I've had here which I wouldn't have elsewhere, or at least not at home. I had one while waiting for a subway train in Taipei yesterday afternoon. It was an announcement over the loudspeaker, in Chinese and English: "In order to keep our stations and trains clean, please do not smoke, eat, drink, or chew gum or betel nuts."

Betel nuts are indeed everywhere here, and are always recognizable for the stands where they are sold, which are always staffed by scantily clad women sitting up all night under fluorescent lights. (Guess what the new teachers in town always think the women are selling, before someone explains it to them?) Juice stains are always visible on the ground anywhere near a stand, and apparently the juice stains your teeth so badly that it wouldn't have made much difference if Bloody Mary had used Pepsident after all.

But you won't see the stains in the subway stations!