Tattoo...

[Syn7]

It was traditionally associated with criminals. This has nothing to do with Yakuza-like body tattoos. In ancient China, men found guilty of crimes were often tattooed on the face. These tattoos were made to look similar to military face tattoos so criminals could easily be absorbed into the Chinese army.

I know this sounds weird, but try to get a another person to verify what the tattoo says. Otherwise, you might be in a changing room when a Chinese persons asks you why it says "Cat anus" on your back (no, I'm not speaking from personal experience.)

A lot of people tend to get 尽忠报国 because it is associated withe Yue Fei. But there is no proof he ever had such a tattoo or that he has any connection to the many styles attributed to him.

I've always thought about getting a Maori tattoo myself. Tattoo guns are for pussies. Bone needles, ink, and a hammer are the only way to go.

yeah, i have heard lots of stories of people getting chinese or japanese words and finding out the hard way that it isnt what they thought it was... i bet some asians do this on purpose for laughs at the stupid whiteboys...

yeah, who needs guns, its all about the hammer....!!!

[David Jamieson]

One thing that most people don't think of when getting a tattoo, is that many years later the ink will spread, outlines will get fuzzy and sunlight will make them fade.

if you got your tattoo in 1958 and it was done with pen ink, then yes. lol

these days the pigments are superb and many of the artists are well trained and have good knowledge.

It's an art form to be sure.
Some people are wrecks, but many have exquisite pieces.

[bawang]

It was traditionally associated with criminals. This has nothing to do with Yakuza-like body tattoos.

its exactly like yakuza tatoos. all the legendary gangsters had tatoos

[Yum Cha]

if you got your tattoo in 1958 and it was done with pen ink, then yes. lol

these days the pigments are superb and many of the artists are well trained and have good knowledge.

It's an art form to be sure.
Some people are wrecks, but many have exquisite pieces.

Then again, on some of us, we'll die before the ink spreads....easy peasy...

[Xiao3 Meng4]

If you want a Kung Fu Tattoo, try this:

Go find a Daoist monk and have them paint a Calligraphic charm for you. Then use that as your tattoo.
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There's more to the disdain of Tattoos in Chinese culture than criminality. It has a lot to do with slavery - and acupuncture, in turn, has a lot to do with both.

Way back in the day, like around 5,300 years ago or something, lived a tattooed man.



No one knows where he got his tattoos, or why exactly he got them; when they discovered his body in a Alpian glacier in the early 90s


they took note of the tattoos and someone remarked that they were placed in areas that appeared to correspond to acupuncture points in TCM:

Expert opinions from three acupuncture societies indicate that nine of the tattoos could be identified as being located directly on or within 6 mm of traditional acupuncture points. Two more tattoos are located on an acupuncture meridian but not close to a point. One tattoo is a local point. Three tattoos are situated between 6 mm and 13 mm from the closest acupuncture points.

Further research indicated that the Tattoos were placed over areas exhibiting pathophysiological signs:



So at some early point there seems to have been a connection between Tattoos and therapy.

Later on, about 700 BC, we find this guy:


He was a Scythian who roamed the Central Eurasian Plains. His Tattoos are much more ornate, and we see what are thought to be "apotropaic" tattoos - charm tattoos for protection, possibly fertility, good hunting, and the like. Still, on his back near his spine we see a series of very simple dot tattoos which are not reflective of the tattoo skills of the time. I propose that they are tattoos which follow the same rationale as Oetzi's tattoos - namely, they are therapeutic.

Fast forward to the 1920s, to when the last Yupiget natives on St. Lawrence Island received traditional Arctic tribal tattoos. The Tattoo tradition in the arctic spans over 3500 years.


Its practice methods and rationale were recorded before they dissappeared completely - again, they correspond to a therapeutic, apotropaic and ancient Chinese Medical use:

Inuit (or Eskimos generally) and St. Lawrence Island Yupiget, in particular, like many other circumpolar peoples, regarded living bodies as inhabited by multiple souls, each soul residing in a particular joint. The anthropologist Robert Petersen has noted that the soul is the element that gives the body life processes, breath, warmth, feelings, and the ability to think and speak. Accordingly, the Eskimologist Edward Weyer stated in his tome, The Eskimos, that, "[a]ll disease is nothing but the loss of a soul; in every part of the human body there resides a little soul, and if part of the man's body is sick, it is because the little soul had abandoned that part, [namely, the joints]."

From this perspective, it is not surprising that tattoos had significant importance in funerary events, especially on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Funerary tattoos (nafluq) consisted of small dots at the convergence of various joints: shoulders, elbows, hip, wrist, knee, ankle, neck, and waist joints. For applying them, the female tattooist, in cases of both men and women, used a large, skin-sewing needle with whale sinew dipped into a mixture of lubricating seal oil, urine, and lampblack scraped from a cooking pot. Lifting a fold of skin she passed the needle through one side and out the other, leaving two "spots" under the epidermis.

Paul Silook, a native of St. Lawrence Island, explained that these tattoos protected a pallbearer from spiritual attack. Death was characterized as a dangerous time in which the living could become possessed by the "shade" or malevolent spirit of the deceased. A spirit of the dead was believed to linger for some time in the vicinity of its former village. Though not visible to all, the "shade" was conceived as an absolute material double of the corpse. And because pallbearers were in direct contact with this spiritual entity, they were ritualistically tattooed to repel it. Their joints became the locus of tattoo because it was believed that the evil spirit entered the body at these points, as they were the seats of the soul(s). Urine and tattoo pigments, as the nexus of dynamic and apotropaic power, prevented the evil spirit from penetrating the pallbearer's body.

South East Asian tribes also have a history of tattooing, as do the tribes of Japan, such as the Ainu. All of them use Tattooing in much the same manner.

So what happened in China? Several theories exist. Here's mine.

With the gradual growth of kingdoms, a need arose for keeping track of whether or not the people on your land were friends or foes. Whereas prior identification may have rested with the types of tattoos a person had, the ever-growing alliances made tattoos an unreliable way to distinguish the enemy from an ally. With so many variations, how could one possibly know where the person approaching was from? So some king, at some point, abolished Tattoos. Maybe it was at the recommendation of Confucius in the Zhou dynasty. Maybe it was earlier, and Confucius reframed the idea in a "don't defile the body" kind of way. At any rate, it meant that Tattoos were no longer regarded as an element of a "civilized" people. It now belonged to "Barbarians" who were often enslaved, causing tattoos to become associated with slaves. Slaves and convicted criminals shared similar predicaments and so Tattooing eventually became associated with Criminals (plus, criminal acts are often described as "barbaric".)

Here's the thing: in China, tattoos appear to initially have been therapeutic and associated with ancestral medicine (ie illness was caused by unhappy ancestors / the Inuit "Shade.") Prior to the Zhou dynasty, Chinese medicine was primarily ancestral. During the Zhou, demonic medicine began replacing ancestral medicine: illness was no longer due to ancestors but to demons. Why the switch? Well, I think it connects back to Slavery. In China, a slave was socially viewed as an ancestorless orphan. As such, ancestral medicine didn't work - meaning slaves required a different explanatory model for their illness.

So demonic medicine came to the forefront: no longer was the goal to protect against dead spirits by shoring up the gates; now, it was to exorcise malevolent influences that had already entered. In urban village and city spaces, men were hired to shout, run down the roads and thrust spears into the darkened corners and alleyways in a ritualistic "exorcism" either every night or on special days. It is possible that this practice relates to acupuncture emergence as a primary method of "invisible tattooing/point exorcism" among doctors.

Even the Ling Shu, an acupuncture classic from about 300BC, provides technical details which point to "tonification" being linked to the insertion of material into and under the skin and "dispersing" being linked to the removal of material from inside and underneath the dermis, which strongly suggests a link between Tattoo therapy and acupuncture therapy in my mind.

The popularity of Tattooing ebbed and flowed over the centuries after that. During one dynasty, Tattooing was so popular that tattoo shops had stencils made that they would just dip in ink and then tap into the skin all at once - one (or two or three) taps = one complete tattoo.

In the last century, for the most part, Tattoos were associated with gangs and hence crime.

Ok, my rant is done. Now back to your regular programming.
CSP

[Sihing73]

Hello,

I have a tat of a Dragon and the kanja for my Sifus system on my right arm.

The characters translate as Limitless Wing Chun or Wing Chun without limits. Of course, English translation is not always word for word and it also can mean hope for the futre. However, the characters have been recognized by several people as being related to Wing Chun Kuen.

Anyhow, my Sifu was okay with me getting the tat several years ago and did the characters for me himself. I am happy with the result.

[bawang]

In the last century, for the most part, Tattoos were associated with gangs and hence crime.

tatoo was asociated with gangs and revolutionary for over one thousad years

[Xiao3 Meng4]

tatoo was asociated with gangs and revolutionary for over one thousad years

There were points in those ~thousand years when it regained some popularity. Never stuck around though. Maybe it will this time.

[Xiao3 Meng4]

some good traditional tatoo words are "斩邪留正"

That is awesome! I think I want that one.

[bawang]

some good ones r "钢刀响处人头滚,宝剑挥时热血流" "双拳起处云雷吼,飞脚来时风雨惊"
a buddhist one is "禅杖打开危险路,戒刀杀尽不平人"

good ones with tai chi moves are "劈头如瓜折背靠" "掩手轰捶五脏烂" "懒扎衣满地寻牙" "虎步单鞭脸粉碎"

Otherwise, you might be in a changing room when a Chinese persons asks you why it says "Cat anus" on your back

that guy must be abc. cat anus is badass. everbody in china knows this.

[ghostexorcist]

its exactly like yakuza tatoos. all the legendary gangsters had tatoos

I'm talking about the root of the stigma: tattoos as corporal punishment. Criminals were tattooed on their face. This is not something they could hide. The public knew to stay away from such people. It was later that gangsters embraced tattoos as apart of their cultural and social identity.

The "Five Punishments" during the Zhou Dynasty were death, castration, cutting off the feet, cutting off the nose, and tattooing.

So some king, at some point, abolished Tattoos. Maybe it was at the recommendation of Confucius in the Zhou dynasty. Maybe it was earlier, and Confucius reframed the idea in a "don't defile the body" kind of way.

Tattoos were considered one of the “mutilating punishments,” so you are on the right track.

[SnowDog]

if you got your tattoo in 1958 and it was done with pen ink, then yes. lol

these days the pigments are superb and many of the artists are well trained and have good knowledge.

It's an art form to be sure.
Some people are wrecks, but many have exquisite pieces.

Unfortunately there are still Tattoo artists that want to save a buck and use cheap ink. In '99 I got some chinese writing on my arm and it was from a shop just starting up. Well needless to say it looked great when I got it, then after a couple years later it bled and blurred, and now it looks like some funny black blobs. (ironically the other tattoo I have on the same arm is now 20yrs old and still looks like great with no fading or bleeding.....good ink by a different artist)

My friend who is now a Tattoo artist says he has many horor stories of covering up tattoos done with bad ink from so called "professionals" and many of these were in the last few years.

[Lucas]

yep my advice is to actually research your artist first. if you think you may want someone to ink you, look into them first. find someone who specializes in chinese characters and other asian ink art.

if they cannot freehand write the characters on paper (not joking, doesnt matter if they can match the style you bring in, but they should have first hand knowlede of how to structure characters), they better not try to tatoo it...lol. i dont care if they stensel or not.

ask to see a portoflio of your artists published ink.

[iron_leg_dave]

yep my advice is to actually research your artist first. if you think you may want someone to ink you, look into them first. find someone who specializes in chinese characters and other asian ink art.

if they cannot freehand write the characters on paper (not joking, doesnt matter if they can match the style you bring in, but they should have first hand knowlede of how to structure characters), they better not try to tatoo it...lol. i dont care if they stensel or not.

ask to see a portoflio of your artists published ink.

Thats a good point. Even if they can produce exquisite western art... they might give the distinguished eye a laugh if they attempt Chinese calligraphy. I need to find a tattoo artist that is also a Chinese calligraphy master...

[GeneChing]

You've seen our Kung Fu (and other Martial Arts) Tattoos thread? I just merged three other tattoo threads into that one (it was the earliest). I'll merge this one too eventually. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe later. Maybe when someone else asks a similar question in a few years....