The No Smoking Section

For the past few months, I have seen a number of dance performances, but NOTHING like what I witnessed tonight! At about 11:30 pm, about 12-15 young Taiwanese women wearing white mini-dresses, white boots, and white masks strutted into the salsa bar. They all moved to one corner, each pulled out a package of cigarettes and struck a pose. They stayed there for about 5 minutes, then strutted to another corner of the bar where they struck another pose. They continued like this until they had covered the whole room. Then the dance floor cleared... probably because the salsa stopped and a dance number came on... The girls filed onto the floor and began their "performance." They took turns doing runway-like struts with turns interspersed with awkward dancing which I think was supposed to look sexy. This continued for about another 5-10 minutes and then they all left the floor single-file and continued on out of the bar.

In Taipei, we are used to the occasional gold-lame Hennesy girl doing the rounds and encouraging people to buy Hennesy... or even the Budweiser girls in their tight tops emblazoned with Budweiser logos and ads. "Hi, care for some beer? Buy 3, get 1 free," etc... but I have NEVER seen anything like this! I doubt a single carton of cigarettes was sold. All the patrons were too busy staring incredulously or laughing. If I were one of those women, I'd be wearing a mask too.