I was sitting in a park near Tiananmen Square, when I saw this bunch of otherwise healthy looking old people coughing and spitting blood everywhere. Even their teeth were red.
Betel nuts have an interesting history.
The source tree resembles a palm, but is not nearly as tall, and the nuts are usually sold in their natural state or prepared for consumption in a number of ways. In Northern Taiwan, the sellers make a small cut in the shell and insert some red-tinted limestone paste. The leaf adds a strong minty and peppery flavor, while the limestone increases the exquisite pungency of the nuts. Chewing betel nuts produces a mouthful of red stained saliva, which must be expectorated on the floor, on the streets, on the walls, on the dog, on the cat, and on the beloved members of one's family. I believe the popular baseball star Roberto Alomar would have faced a much stiffer penalty if he had spit at Mr. Hirshbeck with a mouthful of betel nut.