Young women break the tattoo taboo for the love of body art

Joey Pang works on a customer.

Jodie Chan, a receptionist at Temple Street in Central, is among the growing number of Chinese women breaking the taboo of having a "moving art piece". A tattoo artist said that when he started in the industry, only a tenth of clients were women, but nowadays it was 40%.

Tattoo parlours, hidden in the upper floors of buildings, used to carry an air of mystery.
Conservative Chinese have long associated the body art with muscular men or triads, but now more women are breaking the taboo to get tattooed. Some take it a step further - becoming tattoo artists themselves to show their love for "moving art".

Kenny Chin, at Solo Tattoo, has been in the trade for 10 years. When he began "inking" people, only one-tenth of his customers were female. Now, 40 per cent of them are women.

"People are more open nowadays. They also have a deeper understanding of tattoos. It's not a symbol of bad guys," Chin said. "While we may forget about people or things, a tattoo is permanent."

Most women want beautiful but small tattoos - usually the size of a palm. "They are afraid tattooing larger patterns would not be pretty."

Chin, 37, said he had just taken on a university student as an apprentice. Her enthusiasm impressed Chin, who has been surprised at the number of women asking about how to get into the trade.

At Tattoo Temple in Central, Cynthia Yiu, 35, got a dolphin tattooed on her lower leg. The office worker thought about it for years before she took the plunge.

"Everyone told me not to do it. But it's a personal decision that does no harm to others," she said. The 20-minute session was more painful than she expected, but she did not regret it, as the tattoo had a special meaning, too personal to discuss.

Tattooist Joey Pang, 30, said that about half of Temple's clients were women, but few worked as artists. "There are around four or five female tattooists in Hong Kong. The number of male ones is double that."

Pang studied design and make-up until five years ago. "I have always wanted a life-long profession. It wasn't until I got involved with tattooing that I felt, 'this is it'."

To become professional, she spent two years overseas learning from various tattooists. First she did a course in Thailand, then she went to France and Switzerland to find tattoo artists who had been in a book by an English author.

Pang has always loved drawing and found it appealing that she could use her ideas in tattoo designs. "Tattoos are moving paintings. Clients exhibit your designs on their bodies."

Before she went overseas, her mother asked if she could just learn the techniques and not get tattoos. "But when she saw my tattoos, she understands they are drawings."

Jodie Chan Man-man was the only apprentice Pang took in. The 24-year-old woman, who likes drawing skulls and was surprised tattoo parlours hired people, quit her coffee-shop job to start anew in tattooing.

SCMP.  Oct 11, 2009.