The high proportion of inhabitants of this festering city who are adorned with body art means that we must have an annual tattoo festival. Last year’s was a lavish, outdoor affair which was fun to photograph. This year there is a smaller, more sanitised, affair in the Central Mall.
Interesting to look around, although I was a little concerned when a rather camp tattooist waved a needle in my direction. My immediate response was “you are not sticking that thing in me”, a sentence I expect he had heard many times under different circumstances.
Anyway, a few photos:
Comments 🔗
2009-07-26| JB saysThe guy in the second picture is getting a traditional Thai tattoo called ‘Sak Yant’.
These tattoos are usually done for a specific reason or meaning. Some of the foolish teenagers get tattoos of tigers with special Pali or Khmer writing that protects them from bullets (haha they are foolish) and knives and such.
Sak Yants are traditionally applied with a long metal spike (Khem Sak) or sharpened bamboo stick (Mai Sak) and by a monk or holy man, this guy doing the tattoo is neither.
I have tattoos that were applied by bamboo stick, but these are japanese “tebori” and were applied in Japan many years ago when I lived and trained there.
Why a foreigner would want a Sak Yant is beyond me unless they are Buddhists or don’t want to be shot in the near future.
2009-07-27| Spike saysMaybe because they think it makes them look cool, even though it doesn’t.
You are obviously versed in these matters. And what did you train for in Japan, not an accountant I suspect?
2009-07-27| JB saysNo accountancy I trained a really fantastic martial art called Koryu Bojutsu or to simplify staff (bo)techniques and Jujutsu.
Japan is an amazing country and the world of traditional ways is something foreigners never see.