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Wee Kek Koon

China’s General Administration of Sports issued a new directive late last month that placed an outright ban on tattoos on the nation’s football players.
According to the directive, athletes in the national team and the under-23 national team are strictly prohibited from having new tattoos, and those who already have them are advised to get them removed. Until then, national-level footballers must cover up their tattoos during training and matches.
Despite the recent rising popularity in China of inked skin, the traditional attitude that tattoos mark their bearers as undesirable, or even criminal, elements of society persists in the country, as well as in other East Asian nations. The vast majority of public bathhouses in Japan, for example, still bar people with tattoos from entering their premises.
The antipathy towards tattoos runs deep in traditional Han Chinese culture. The ancient inhabitants of the North China Plain, the cradle of Han Chinese civilisation, considered tattoos to be a marker of ethnic “otherness”.
Why tattoos are still frowned upon in East Asia
A phrase that frequently appears in ancient Chinese texts that describes non-Han Chinese peoples who lived in the periphery of the nascent Chinese nation, especially to the east and south, was “shorn (or unfastened) hair and tattooed bodies”.
Just as the ancient Greeks referred to the non-Hellenic peoples in settlements around them as “barbarians”, the ancient Han Chinese also called their immediate neighbours various names that quickly acquired pejorative meanings. That many of these supposedly “uncivilised” neighbours sported tattoos as cultural markers informed Han Chinese prejudice against tattoos from very early on.

An even more compelling reason for the traditional aversion to tattoos is the fact that tattooing was a form of punishment for criminals. It was the lightest among the physical penalties in ancient China known as the Five Punishments, the other four being rhinotomy (cutting off the nose), amputation of the lower limbs, castration, and death.
For criminals thus punished, words describing the nature of their crimes were tattooed with indelible ink on their foreheads, temples or cheeks. This was often accompanied by subsequent exile to frontier regions where they served in various menial capacities at the garrisons. At times, the locations of their exile were tattooed on their faces as well.
While rhinotomy, amputation and emasculation were abolished in the early imperial period between the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE, tattooing the face remained in the statute books until the fall of the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century. The death penalty is still meted out in the present day.
Why Chinese women are rejecting the stigma of getting a tattoo
Tattooed former criminals returned to society at the end of their exile or imprisonment, but because of the very visible markers of their ex-con status, they remained in the margins, always the subject of suspicion and scorn.
Rejected by society, many of them joined criminal gangs and in time, tattooed people acquired a reputation as “tough guys” and outlaws.
There was a brief period in the Song dynasty (960–1279) when tattoos were fashionable even among the upper classes, but for most of China’s ancient past and imperial period tattoos marked one as either a “barbarian” or a criminal, with the latter presumption persisting until today.

Tattoos as a fashion statement are a very recent phenomenon in Chinese communities. They are not only the preserve of “creative types” like artists and pop stars; tattoos also adorn the skins of law-abiding bankers, doctors, housewives and athletes.
However, it is not easy to overcome prejudices that are millennia in the making. Hence tattooed Chinese football players are expected to adhere to the new directives.


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Why Han Chinese associate tattoos with criminality, and their long history as a punishment and marker of ‘otherness’

Chinese soccer players with tattoos, such as Zhang Linpeng (above left) and Wang Yongpo (above right), have been told to cover them up and banned from getting new tattoos. Negative views of tattoos have a long history in China. Photo: EPA

A depiction of a criminal in China receiving a tattoo on the face. Such tattoos would describe criminals’ offences and made rehabilitation difficult.

Contestants show their tattoos at an international tattoo show in Guangxi Zhuang, China. Tattoos as a fashion statement are a very recent phenomenon in Chinese communities. Photo: Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Hong Kong fashion label Wear Earthero, which upcycles vintage luxury bags and fabric scraps, shows wearable art to promote ‘conscious living’

Nine artists in Hong Kong were given a piece of deadstock fabric to paint on for Wear Earthero’s sustainable fashion exhibition.

A Louis Vuitton bag with tigers and butterflies added by Hong Kong artist Viki Chan features in sustainable fashion label Wear Earthero’s _Reimagined: WE Showcase exhibition.

Wear Earthero founder Bertha Shum at the Sewing Paradise studio in Sham Shui Po wearing a patchwork jacket made by its seamstresses.

Hong Kong artist Viki Chan with a Hermes Kelly 35 leather handbag she has painted on, part of the “_Reimagined: WE Showcase” exhibition.

Inking outside the box: how Hong Kong tattoo parlours are doing things differently

Guest tattooist Will Wallas handles tools at Star Crossed Tattoo in Tsim Sha Tsui. Click here to launch gallery. Photos Jonathan Wong


A customer waits for a tattoo at Star Crossed Tattoo in Tsim Sha Tsui.

The interior of Star Crossed Tattoo.

Ross Turpin (left, in glasses) and Rich Phipson at their studio.

Guest tattooist at Star Crossed Tattoo Will Wallas shows off his neck art. 

Rob Kelly searches for inspiration at his tattoo parlour.

Kin Liu.

Working on a design at Zink Tattoo.

Zink Tattoo owner Zac Wong and his wife, Vivi.

The interior of Zink Tattoo in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Tattooist Zac Wong's impressive neck, arm and finger art.

Reporter Sarah Karacs' tattoo takes shape.

Kin Liu etches a flower on reporter Sarah Karacs' arm.

Rob Kelly with a tattoo gun.

The interior of Rob Kelly's tattoo parlour.

A serpent design at Rob Kelly's parlour.

Hong Kong's 'new tattoo culture': photographer charts its evolution

Jennifer and Vince run The Company Tattoo in Mong Kok. Bold lines, a graphic sensibility and strong colours define Vince’s artworks.  The Company provides a great example of the new style of tattoo studios evident now in the Hong Kong scene. DESKTOP USERS CLICK ON THIS IMAGE TO LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY. Photos: Helen Mitchell

Yuuri came to the studio with her husband who is extensively tattooed; she was shy about getting her small tattoo photographed.  The cupcake is for her daughter - it has the girl's name inscribed in the icing.  

The large monochromatic tattoo on Sonny's back illustrates his relationship with his family.  Each family member is represented by points of the compass, which combine to give Sonny the sense of them coming together.

Jayers has her own tattoo studio, Lovinkit, in Sham Shui Po. With her degree in psychology, Jayers, some clients say, can almost "read their minds". She has a particular sensitivity to creating work which sits well on the bodies of her subjects.

Nic provides another good example of the new tattoo culture in Hong Kong.  In addition to running a successful tattoo studio, Mei Wah Tattoo, that also offers guest artist spots, Nic regularly attends tattoo conventions around the world.

Cherry has six tattoos, three of them by Jayers.  Cherry works as a teacher and dancer, and delights in talking about her tattoos.  

Helen Mitchell has a theory that people in post-colonial societies are getting inked as a way to strengthen their cultural roots and identity.

The tattoos that can be ‘turned off’: erasable ink allows you to have second thoughts about being inked

A woman with tattoos poses. Photo: Shutterstock

Handout image shows a low power laser used by Inque, turning off the doors of a tattoo that uses ink that responds to the laser treatments.

A tattooist works on a man's head during the first day of the second "Mondial du Tatouage" international tattoo convention in Paris on March 7, 2014.   AFP PHOTO / LIONEL BONAVENTURE (Photo by LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP)

Canadian tattoo artist Katie Shocrylas poses during a photo session at the "Mondial du Tatouage" Tattoo Convention at the Grand Halle de la Villette in Paris on February 14, 2019. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP)

A new “erasable” ink can be turned off in a single session if you don’t like your tattoo. Photo: Shutterstock

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China’s ban on football players having tattoos reflects a long-held attitude among Han Chinese that tattooed people are undesirable
Tattoos were used as a form a punishment, and those thus punished could not be rehabilitated because they were inked and often joined gangs of criminals



China recently banned its football players from having tattoos. Long viewed as uncivilised by Han Chinese, tattoos were used as a form of punishment whose victims, incapable of rehabilitation, joined crime gangs.


Tattoos

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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