TAIPEI: The high-speed rail's monthly magazine has touted Hsinchu City's betel-nut babes as one of the city's must-sees, incurring the wrath of the city's mayor Hsu Ming-tsai and its residents.

Hsu instructed the city's information officials to file a formal protest with the magazine's publisher, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) and demand a correction.

The article, published in the January edition of the high-speed railway's on-train travel magazine T-Life, has sparked discontent and resentment among city residents, according to the city government.

Local residents have complained that since Hsinchu is not the only city where scantily-clad girls sell betel nuts at street stands, they could not understand why the high-speed railway focused on it as a tourist attraction in Hsinchu, the city government said.

Hsinchu City police chief Lee Chin-tien said city police have already begun cracking down on the practice of using scantily-clad girls to sell the product.

Twenty betel nut stands in the city are under police surveillance, half of which are on Chingkuo Road, where betel-nut babes are most commonly found, Lee said.

But the magazine cited stands on Chunghua Road, where there are fewer betel-nut stands and most of the women vendors are dressed normally, he said.

The travel magazine not only angered residents of Hsinchu City but also Hsinchu County Magistrate Chiu Ching-chun, who criticized the magazine for reporting sightseeing attractions only in Hsinchu City while ignoring the county.

"Since the high-speed railway is not willing to do the job, we will do it ourselves," Chiu said at a county affairs meeting.

He asked the county's tourism and travel department to produce flyers introducing sightseeing attractions in the county and to update the county government's website.

In response to the protests, Chung Tao-ming of THSRC's public affairs department said the magazine is outsourced.

Although only one sentence in the article on Hsinchu City mentions the betel-nut babes, the company agreed that the reporting was inappropriate, Chung said. He pledged to review the situation and make improvements.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 02/02/2010 page2)