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.

In a shower of sparks, fire dragon rises again to protect Tai Hang from the plague

The fire dragon of Tai Hang rose refreshed again on the eve of the moon festival yesterday, brightening up the tranquil Causeway Bay neighbourhood and wrapping it in a cheerful carnival mood.

Waves of revellers and fun seekers streamed into Tai Hang in the evening to watch the annual ritual of the fire dragon dance, which saw a 67-metre-long fire dragon emblazoned with thousands of burning sticks of incense take to the streets.

The air over Tai Hang was thick with the billowing white incense smoke, as more than 100 young bearers took turns carrying the fire dragon, threading through the narrow streets to bring good luck to residents. Bursts of light from camera flashguns and cheers from revellers pierced the smoke as the fire dragon twisted back and forth along the narrow streets.

Among the crowd was keen photographer Tommy Kwok, 24, who had arrived an hour early to jostle for a better position to take pictures of the fire dragon. "It is my first time to watch the fire dragon dance. I think it is really cool and is going to be a memorable event," said a delighted Kwok.

The legend of the fire dragon can be traced back almost 130 years to when Tai Hang was a village whose inhabitants lived on farming and fishing. A plague hit the villagers, and the only way to get rid of it was to keep a fire dragon dancing for three days and nights during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Villagers did so and the plague disappeared.

Earlier this week, the government declared the dance was among four local traditions it would recommend to the Ministry of Culture for the status of national intangible cultural heritage. The fire dragon dance is one of the many highlights of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. This year, it falls today. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a major event for Chinese, celebrated by compatriots all over the world. The Chinese traditionally observe the festival with their families, serving mooncakes and lighting lanterns.

The Observatory says the moon will be at its fullest at 11.38pm tonight. Today's forecast is for dry and fine weather with one or two light rain patches, then clearing skies at night.

"Early birds" who went to Victoria Park last night to see the moon were not let down.

Chan Kwong-chiu, 50, who went with his wife, said: "We come to the park to watch the moon every year. We like the beautifully decorated lanterns on display here."

A Mid-Autumn lantern carnival will be held in Victoria Park tonight. The three-hour show features Chinese traditional stage arts, puppetry, a lantern quiz and fortune-telling. Performing troupes from Yunnan and Hebei will perform songs, dances and acrobatics.

There are also lantern exhibitions to promote the East Asian Games at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre piazza from now until November 1. Another lantern exhibition is planned for the West Kowloon waterfront promenade today and tomorrow.

SCMP.  Oct. 3, 2009.