“My behavior encroached on the physical and mental health of minors,” learn a court-ordered apology issued by a tattoo artist in China’s Shaanxi province in September. “I am deeply aware of my mistakes,” he added.
The man, who had admitted giving tattoos to 43 minors, turned one of many first folks charged beneath a brand new age restriction legislation, which got here into impact in June. But whereas many international locations implement comparable guidelines banning younger folks from getting inked, Chinese state media protection recommended that defending minors was as a lot about ideology as medical welfare.
The laws, which bans folks from even encouraging these aged beneath 18 to get tattoos, is simply the newest transfer in an increasing crackdown on physique artwork in China.
People pose with designs by Beijing-based tattoo artist Chen Jie, whose work can be pictured high. Credit: Courtesy Chen Jie
Many public sector organizations have explicitly said in job descriptions that individuals with tattoos will not be eligible for sure roles, together with cops, firefighters and even freeway toll collectors. In 2020, officers within the northwestern metropolis of Lanzhou ordered taxi drivers to take away “large tattoos” on the grounds that they “may cause women, children and other passengers feel psychological discomfort.”
Because there isn’t a official licensing system for tattoo artists in China, the business exists in a authorized grey space. Credit: Justin Robertson/Act Daily News
Stereotypes surrounding tattoos are partly rooted in historic associations with criminality. In historic China, marking offenders’ faces with everlasting ink was thought of one of many “Five Punishments” alongside execution and amputation.
Gareth Davey, a visiting professor at China’s Yunnan Normal University who research the nation’s tattoo tradition, defined that stigma additionally stems from Confucian values.
“In Confucianism, conserving the skin and body inherited from parents was an exemplar of filial piety, and deemed necessary for a civilized society,” he mentioned in an e mail interview, “whereas tattooing signified an uncivilized practice and a failure to uphold family duties.”
He added that tattooing is extra stigmatized in China than the West as a result of “people value doing what is best for society and fulfilling obligations in social relationships.”
A type of self-expression
Despite official disdain, extra younger persons are getting inked in the present day than ever earlier than, in response to Chen Jie, who began her personal tattoo studio in Beijing in 2005. While her clientele was as soon as predominantly male, she now sees a rising variety of Chinese girls — for whom social stigmas are sometimes far stricter — at her studio within the capital’s bustling Sanlitun neighborhood.
“(Chinese society) is becoming more open, with so much new information now available to us thanks to the internet,” she mentioned in a telephone interview. “People used to link tattoos with thugs and gangs but now it has become a culture that’s associated with being cool.”
Tattoo artist Chen Jie, who opened her Beijing studio in 2005. Credit: Courtesy Chen Jie
Chen is taken into account a pioneer of the “watercolor” tattooing model, which is impressed by conventional ink brush work. Using refined coloration and gradual shading, she usually depicts scenes from nature, like bamboo, cranes and the “shan shui” (actually “mountain, water”) landscapes traditionally present in Chinese artwork.
One of Chen’s landscape-inspired tattoo designs. Credit: Courtesy Chen Jie
Others go for a extra practical aesthetic, like Victoria Lee, who turned a tattoo artist shortly after finishing her research on the famend Academy of Arts and Design at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Her photorealistic model sees her inking detailed portraits starting from purchasers’ family and pets to pop stars and historic figures.
“I wanted to get an important family member’s portrait tattooed but I couldn’t find anyone who shared my artistic values,” she mentioned throughout a telephone interview, recounting how she began out within the business. “I’ve always thought that tattoos are really cool and I thought, ‘Why not try it myself?'”
A photorealisitc tattoo by Victoria Lee. Credit: Courtesy 01 Victoria Lee
Zhao Xiang, a postdoctoral researcher at Sweden’s Örebro University who has extensively studied Chinese tattoo tradition, mentioned that in the present day’s younger persons are extra more likely to get tattoos as a type of self-expression. “Today, people want to see more diversity and individuality,” he mentioned over the telephone. “They like the spirit of individualism rather than a collective spirit.”
Legal uncertainty
There isn’t any official licensing system for tattoo artists in China. As such, the business exists in a authorized grey space whereby studios function with out supervision or inspections into their security, hygiene or aftercare practices.
“It’s still kind of a ‘half-underground’ situation,” mentioned Song Jiayin, who owns an all-female tattoo studio in Beijing.
Tattoo artist Song Jiayin usually makes use of a sequence motif, a reference to a Chinese mom of eight who was discovered chained up in a rural village. Credit: Courtesy Song Jiayin
When Song opened her studio in 2016, she discovered that over 70% of her purchasers had been feminine. She began a venture known as “1,000 girls,” which goals to inform the tales of 1,000 feminine purchasers and their tattoos. The venture has seen her create quite a lot of tattoos alluding to their experiences, together with a uterus-shaped tattoo for the daughter of a lady who needed to have her uterus surgically eliminated for medical causes. Song herself has a sequence tattoo on her wrist that pays tribute to a Chinese mom of eight who was present in a rural village with a sequence round her neck, sparking outrage in China final 12 months over girls’s rights.
With China’s feminists and different activists focused by authorities crackdowns in recent times, Song mentioned she has confronted hostility from the authorities — together with throughout occasions the place she offered merchandise that includes her chain design.
“(The authorities) don’t regulate the tattoo industry because they don’t want to recognize tattoos to begin with,” she mentioned. “It’s their way of expressing their dislike.”
A portrait of tattoo artist Victoria Lee. Credit: Justin Robertson/Act Daily News
Lee working in her studio. Credit: Justin Robertson/Act Daily News
Body artists face comparable authorized uncertainties in South Korea — and, till a 2020 supreme courtroom ruling, Japan — the place it’s technically unlawful for anybody apart from a medical skilled to hold out tattoos. Yet, China’s National Health Commission said in 2009 that tattooing shouldn’t be listed as a medical beauty process, whereas the nation’s Ministry of Commerce has additionally mentioned that invasive pores and skin operations will not be thought of a part of the sweetness sector.
“Nobody is clear whether (tattooing) is under the legal provision of the beauty industry or the medical industry,” mentioned Örebro University’s Zhao, including that this ambiguity extends to purchasers, too. “If you look closely at the laws and regulations, you may not dare to get a tattoo because, if you end up in some legal dispute, you simply have no place to go to defend your rights.”
In the months for the reason that ban on inking minors got here into impact, a number of “public interest” circumstances have been filed by state prosecutors, leading to fines for tattoo artists. In December, for instance, a Shanghai courtroom fined one individual 5,000 yuan ($739) for inking a 17-year-old, whereas a courtroom in Lhasa in Tibet ordered one other artist to pay 10,000 yuan ($1,477) to a tattooed minor for “psychological damage.”
The seemingly big selection of presidency businesses concerned in implementing the ban has solely added to the confusion, mentioned Zhao, and the newest restrictions are unlikely to be the final.
“There are just campaign-style bans coming one after another,” he added.