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Tattoo artist helps Vietnamese women heal in a country that still frowns on permanent ink
- ‘Ngoc Like’ says many of her clients get tattooed out of a wish to renew themselves and open a new chapter in life
- Although attitudes in Vietnam are changing, tattoos still remain associated with gangsters, prostitution and the criminal underground
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In her tiny Hanoi flat, tattoo artist Ngoc inks women whose lives have been upended by divorce or illness, each of them searching for healing through an art form that is still largely taboo in Vietnam.
Although attitudes are changing, tattoos remain associated with gangsters, prostitution and the criminal underground in the communist, broadly conservative country.
“I met many women who told me they loved tattoos but they were born at a time when no one supported them,” says Ngoc, who goes by the name “Ngoc Like”.
But some are choosing to push back against those old ideas, seeing body art as emancipation from some of the rigid societal norms they have lived by.
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Tattoos help Vietnamese women heal from physical and emotional trauma
Tattoos help Vietnamese women heal from physical and emotional trauma
Getting inked is often a landmark moment in these women’s lives, Ngoc, 28, says.
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