Tattoos / tattoo / tattoing in Taiwan

[quote]Who would be so famous as to attract a young, American Hollywood actress halfway around the globe, to Bangkok?
[/quote]
She has a house in Cambodia that she visits often, so I’ve heard. She probably got inked during a stopover.

[quote=“sandman”][quote]Who would be so famous as to attract a young, American Hollywood actress halfway around the globe, to Bangkok?
[/quote]
She has a house in Cambodia that she visits often, so I’ve heard. She probably got inked during a stopover.[/quote]

Yeah, probably, but I remember reading that the artist was one she sought out specifically, and that he was very, very famous in California, USA.

So I’m thinkin, who would be so famous in Bangkok?

Maybe he’s famous only on the Malay peninsula and in SE Asia, and I just remember it wrong. :idunno:

Anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with tattoos in Taiwan…

I personally am a fan of tattoos but have yet to get one done… I have been planning it for quite a few years now and have still not quite gotten there… I am llooking at doing something that combines both my New Zealand heritage and the Chinese culture that my wife belongs to.

Therefore, I’d be very interested in hearing from anyone who has had tattooing experiences. I am more interested in art work as opposed to characters…

Cheers!

Daryl

I got these cool little tattoos from Doritos…Batman baby! whoohoo :sunglasses:

nice… very nice… :bravo:

Cheers!

Daryl

There’s a tattoo place at the Wall on the corner of Roosevelt and Jilung.
You can get a variety of Maori wannabe or tramp stamp designs there.

Jay from The Wall can actually draw really well. He has some of his sketchbooks in the store, and I really love his style. Tattoo artists can’t always help what people ask them to do, you know. He might just be a little bit better than the soundpeople at The Wall. (ahem)

The one that most of my friends have used, though, and that is apparently quite good is in that 6/7 storey small mall-thing that has been discussed here before. The top two floors have all those model soldiers/airplanes/anime toys stuff for hobbyists. On the third or fourth floor there is a Lip Service clothing store, and on the floor just above it there is a tattoo place. I think it is on Kun ming street in Hsimen Ting.

I got this done at Jay when he was still in an alley in Hsimending. Cost me NT$ 4000, but I had contacts:) As you can see his fonts are a bit off…like a bad nectarine. He draws freely, not trace it like they do back home. So the N is small, and the ‘h’ looks like a small ‘n’. But the little circle between the 8 and the 10 is perfect…that is very hard to do.

I would go there again.[/img]

the tatt isn’t crooked, it’s my back that’s a bit off…like a tangerine.

Uhm, I can’t quite make that out…do you have a few dozen more pics? :smiling_imp:

At least, in Taiwan, you can get Chinese character tattoos done by people who actually know what they mean! Thereby avoiding the disasters seen at Hanzismatter!

I’ve had three done in Taipei, all at Hsimen. Just those blokes, a different one each time, at the side of the road - fuck hygiene, let that bitch fester! Anyway…

The second one I had here was done by a man who used a blunt spoon, gouging trenches into my shoulder (picture trickles of blood down to the elbow), and the pain made me pass out. Actually, this incident happened in the middle of a series of random blackouts, and an investigation and battery of tests performed by the good doctors at Ren Ai revealed a heart defect being responsible for these, in this case triggered by the pain.

But overall it has been a fairly decent experience. The last one I had was my favourite. Something I designed and then had ‘interpreted’ by the artist (for the better - he added some nice rounding touches to an otherwise very ‘straight’ design).

Why did I choose him? Because Da Mao (I think that’s his name - the bloke up in the building) was closed for the day. The guy did a bit of a mucky job filling it in after he’d drawn the lines, and there are (unartistic) grey bits in it. Can’t see it from far, but up close it’s obvious. Will I get it sorted out? Probably. Eventually. It will involve shaving, and I’ve only just gotten over looking peculiar for the last few months so don’t want to go through that again anytime soon. In the next couple of years I want to get them all touched up again in any case, so it doesn’t bother me.

I’ve had good experiences - even the Butcher wasn’t that bad in the end, after he calmed his torture following my collapse. I’m sure there are those who have not shared in my fortune. It all depends on the guy and the place. I’d watched the guys in Hsimen at work, and knew who I was going to choose from. Like I said, I started at Da Mao’s and worked my way down the list. Second bloke spoke English, so kapow, I slapped down some cash and off we went.

Would I be better off going to a well-established tattoo artist in NZ then? sounds like it!!!

Cheers!

Daryl

maybe your scabbies fell off too soon? I enjoyed the whole Hsimen experience too. The first time was OK, lying topless in January in an alley was a bit tricky…especially when the crowds started gathering. Was very cute though, many older people came up to me and said ’ oooh, so beautiful’ when looking at my tatt.

I went for a touch-up because one of my students decided to jump on my back. Was pretty hard to pretend that there really was nothing wrong at the time. It was so funny, a complete ‘e’ fell out of my shirt! So I had to go for touch-ups. I didn’t expect that he will do EVERYTHING again, but he did! And I was sitting, that hurt quite a bit more than lying down.

That’s hilarious! Probably turned the students off their ABCs for life… :sick: Anybody want to buy a vowel? :smiling_imp: :laughing:

Part of it was that, definitely - it’s on the calf, was also done in January (I wanted to take off my shirt, but when I do that, people tend to stand around shuffling their feet in awkward silences etcetera), so my pants rubbing on it would’ve seen to that. But also, there are patches where he just didn’t do the job.

A fresh tattoo is a disaster magnet, in my experience. Fresh one on the shoulder, sitting on the floor at school, kid charges past and grabs on, so he can swing himself round (think Michael Keaton’s Batmobile) - I didn’t pretend nothing was wrong - I screamed like a bobbysockser at a Beatles concert.

One across the back of the neck in Bangkok - hours after it’s done, drinking in one of those Patpong Pussy Pokey Pokey Palace places, and friendly bathroom attendant decides to give me a back rub (which was bizarre in itself, as I was actively micturating at the time). Seconds later he’s cowering in the corner, as the suddenly rather tetchy foreigner sprays piss about the place.

The one on the calf - I have very good luck when it comes to navigating the streets of Taipei, and have only been hit by one scooter and one electric wheelchair in nearly 5 years, until January, when bicycles started hunting me.

today I saw a foreigner near Da-an Park with a tatt on his calve…it was almost like a New Zealand mask thingy in the middle of a huge solid black square…that must have been difficult to protect!

Have you seen any Taiwanese people with Chinese character tattoos? I have. You might be interested to know what characters they see fit for a tattoo.
I have seen this character a couple of times on Taiwanese arms:

It means “ninja”. But it also means “perseverance”.

Another one I’ve seen on locals:

It’s a radical. It means “occult” or “mysterious” or “metaphysical” or something…

Chinese character tattoos seem to be more popular among Westerners than among Chinese people. And I think Westerners get characters that Chinese people are not likely to choose.

On Westerners, I’ve seen stuff like 慧 (wisdom) 愛 (love) and 中庸 (“the middle way of Tao”) but not on Chinese people.

If you live in China or Taiwan for a longer time, then it will definitely get frustrating when locals seem to constantly ask you if you know what your tattoo means. I remember this guy at the tax office with 中庸 on his arm. One girl said to him in English, “Do you know what that means?” and as he answered, I just thought to myself - I can tell he’s sick of that question but she has no idea…

I had both of my tattoos done in the States, but since I’m not planning another trip back for a while, I’ve been thinking of getting another one here. I’ll check out a few places and see what I can find out. I took my ex-boyfriend to get one done a few years ago at some mall complex in Banqiao, and the place was clean and the guy seemed to know what he was doing … too bad I forget how to get there … sigh

I’ve seen several. I even saw a woman here with 巫 (witch, sorceror) tattooed on her neck.