So... Is This Permanent?

According to the Merriam-Webster website, the definition of a tattoo is a permanent marking fixed upon one’s body by inserting a selected color under the layers of skin or scarring the body(1). Tattoos have been mentioned in cultures for many centuries by now. People all around the world have tattoos. Not every person will approve of tattoos while some people go all out making their entire body a walking canvas for the tattoo artists. Now, you might be thinking to yourself “where are you going with this, Kelly?” Well, let me tell you the history of Japanese ink and its significance in Japanese society among the people and culture.

Let’s start off by discussing the different tattoos in Japanese culture. As Shura, a tattoo artist from Osaka had stated, “There are tattoos that you can show and ones that you can hide. Traditional tattoos are okay to show at festivals, certain public baths, and during fights. The cute, fashionable ones, they are okay to show whenever”(2). These tattoos, in which Shura broken up into two types, are based on where they were influenced; the Japanese-influenced and Western-influenced. The Japanese people distinguish the different tattoo styles by calling them wabori (Japanese style) and youbori (Western style). Irezumi is an example of wabori(3).

Traditional Japanese tattoos are referred to as irezumi. They are the most well-known tattoos that American can associate with Japanese tattoos. These tattoos are called “full body suits” by non-Japanese speakers for they cover “the entire body, from the neckline, back, and chest to the ankle”(4, page 5). The design behind this type of tattoo is based off the ukiyo-e woodblock prints; themes that are commonly seen include dragons, craps, peonies, Kannon (the Goddess of Mercy), sakura (cherry blossoms), the seasons, demons, and more. Irezumi were developed during the Edo period in the mid 18th century(5, page 321). During these times of feudalism, the term irezumi referred to disciplinary tattoos, whereas horimono referred to general tattooing. As a result of the [continuous] negative association of irezumi, Japanese traditional tattooists prefer to use the term horimono to describe their art(6, ibid).

A common pattern of tattooing within the irezumi is the munawari. This tattoo design is shaped like an “unbuttoned vest.” It was designed with a long path of “non-tattooed” skin along the midline of the body to be able to be viewed without the tattoo, covering the chest and back, to be seen. This was ideal for men’s kimonos as well as Western clothing.

Kishobori is dubbed “the vow tattoo” for its practice among the geishas (professional performers) and yujos (prostitutes) during the Feudal Edo Period. It expressed the geisha or yujo’s pledge of love to their client – or actual lover – by tattooing said person’s name onto the inner of their arm (7). However, not only lovers had this type of tattoo done. People who were going to prove their devotion to Buddhism had a Buddhist scripture tattooed onto their bodies as their vow. Nowadays, people get these vow tattoos as a way to pledge their desire to avoid making wrong decisions or having wrong behavior according to an interview with traditional Japanese artist “Horikazu”(8, page 328).

As noted above, the backgrounds on these tattoos are adaptions of the ukiyo-e prints. However, the emblements are what truly stand out on the irezumi. There are common themes that make up the irezumi: “various flora and fauna, to religious motifs, and to representations of various heroes and folk figures”(9, page 40).

The flora aspect of irezumi is mainly limited to the peony, chrysanthemum, cherry blossom, and maple leaf. Each flower has its separate meaning. The peony associates itself to the gambling days of the Edo period. Gamblers who wore their tattoos proudly were often seen playing placing bets on games like hana-fuda, which corresponds with the seasons, months, and flowers. June is represented by the peony. This flower now represents gambling and mannish debauchery like those of the Edo gamblers. The chrysanthemum represents having determination and being committed to one’s goals. The cherry blossom, one of Japan’s well known flowers, symbolizes the briefness life. According to Donald Richie, “the implications of a man wearing such an indicate cherry blossom pattern are that he is in accord with the nature of things, sad though this nature may be, and that his own flesh is as fragile as the petals of the blossoms, but that is the way things are”(10, ibid). Finally, the maple leaf represents an undying love. Each of these characteristics represents the way the wearer views him/herself or how they want to be seen as others (11, page 41).

As for animals, the carp and the dragon are among the most common themes. The carp is seen as a brave creature for their ability to swim up the waterfalls and if they are caught and about to be cut up, the carp would lay uncaringly on the cutting board waiting for the knife to dismember its body. Thus, the wearer wants to be as courageous and apathetic as this majestic creature. The dragon is seen as an example of ying-yang for it breathes fire yet lives within water. This combination represents certain wholeness. There are many factors that go into the dragon and its meaning – such as the position of its body, if it is holding something, the amount of paws/claws are raised, etc. The wearer does know that the dragon means strength and true wisdom, which may be what the wearer wants to be like (12, page 45).

And finally, there are many tattoos that have a Buddhist influence. Unlike the West where the wearer would represent religion using the significant person, the Japanese use the minor deities in their tattoo designs. The main three deities are: Nio, Kannon, and Fudo. Nio consists of two muscular kings that were traditionally guardians. These two represent strength and power. Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, is known to act as a mediator in conflicts. Fudo or the God of Wrath/Guardian of Hell, which is often confused for being an evildoer, is actually a good deity that punishes wrongdoers. He is depicted as holding a rope in his left hand to bind the bad guys and a flaming sword in his right. Reasons as to why someone would want to have Fudo as a tattoo would be because Fudo is similar to them: lives in a bad neighborhood and has many difficult social drawbacks, but he is a hard worker and has what would be considered to be pronounced virtues (13, pages 45-49).

To create these pieces of work, a traditional tattoo master prefers to use the tebori. Tebori comes from the Japanese words te, meaning “hand,” and bori, “carve"(14). Tebori is a very long process; to give you an idea of how long this process could take, it’s about year or more to be fully complete. It is done completely by hand in multiple sessions – usually once a week – doing a section of the design. The needle that the tattooist uses is not like Western needles which are a single needle. Japanese tattooing needles are usually a bundle of needles – ranging from 2 to ten or more based on the design of the irezumi – attached to a wooden handle (15, page 85). What the tattooist does is he or she dips their needles into the ink and moves their right hand up and down at ankle as moving very quickly. While moving their right hand, they stretch out the skin of their client with their left thumb and pointer fingers. The tattooist actually lines his or her needles against the thumb (16).

While it seems as though people in the West of Asia are interested in getting tattoos that resemble Eastern culture (such as getting “cool-looking kanji”), Japanese people are more interested in getting tattoos inspired by the West. These Japanese people are usually young in their 20s. To them, western tattoos are fashionable, have no connections to the Japanese mafia (the yakuza), a little bit more acceptable in Japanese culture rather than traditional tattoos, can give a sexy vibe for the women wearers, can be masculine for the men, and can be expressive of who they want to be. As the Japanese tattoos that I have discussed above have very elaborate backgrounds (or backgrounds in general), the Western tattoos do not have anything in the background of the tattoo (17). This may be another reason as why Western tattoos are more preferable among this group of Japanese.

Meiko Yamada had conducted an experiment with Japanese students studying in Canada in which half of the students had confirmed that tattooed people in Japan are treated differently than those without tattoos. It is not enough to be treated differently for having a tattoo, but those with tattoos are treated differently based on their tattoos. “If people have traditional Japanese tattoos, they are regarded as members of the yakuza. If they have Western tattoos, they are considered to be ordinary people or non-yakuza" (18, page 9). This reinforces what Shura had been describing. The youbori wearers would be regarded as regular people, thus allowing them a little bit less discriminated against than those who wear wabori.

So, my next points are going to bring out the idea of why the youbori are more acceptable in Japanese culture than wabori. As I had mentioned above, to the Japanese, the traditional Japanese tattoos are associated with belonging to the yakuza. People with these full-body suits are often stigmatized wherever they go, due to the fact that they have a tattoo. These people are banned from entering public places that one could reveal their bodies – onsens (hot springs), pools, saunas, bathhouses, and most recently, the Suma Beach in Kobe. Outside of these establishments are signs that more or less prohibit anyone with a tattoo to enter. In some cases, as long as the tattoo is out of other’s sights – in other words, hidden from plain view – then those tattooed people may have the privileged to enter.

But where did the Japanese come up with associating tattoos with the yakuza and banning all tattooed people from certain places? Well, the answer is simple: history. As Meiko Yamada puts it, “because of its historical and socio-cultural background, tattooing in Japan is associated with dark and negative imagines in the minds of many people" (19, page 5). Let’s take a somewhat brief look at Japan’s tattooed past. In the year 279 AD, the Chinese had noticed the tattooing on the Japanese men in the famous Records of Wei – or Gishiwajinden. To the Chinese, tattoos were to only be used as punishment and associated with being barbaric (20). In these records, Japan was referred to as “wa;” this could be an indictator of why the word for Japanese tattoos is "wabori" (21). Almost five hundred years later, Japan had adopted the idea of marking criminals with a tattoo, rather than cutting off an ear or nose like the older system. This made it easier to identify who was a criminal and from where based on the design and location of the tattoo.

Tattooing was reserved solely for major crimes. By the end of the seventeenth century however, other forms of punishment were being thought up. Decorative tattoos, though they were frown upon in society, were being popularized and allowed criminals to hide themselves with the new decorative designs (22). As the Japanese were opening its doors open for the outsiders, it began ruling against tattoos. All tattoos were to be prohibited regardless of what it was - including tribal customs such as those of the Ainu people or religious. This goes back to the idea of tattoos being barbaric and wanting to impress as well as be up-to-par with the westerners in their modernized society (23). In an ironic twist of fate, the westerners had wanted to receive the tattoos from the Japanese thus allowing the Japanese tattooist to work on westerners, but not Japanese people (24). Tattoos would be banned for Japanese people until the end of World War Two (25, page 321).

Now that you are familiar with the history behind tattoos in Japanese culture, let’s look at the tattooed people themselves. I had categorized these people into three main groups: Ainu people, yakuza, and non-yakuza people. I will discuss how tattoos influence these people and how they are/were treated.

First, I will start with the Ainu people of Japan. The Ainu are the indigenous people of the Hokkaido region of Japan. The Ainu people, particularly the women, tattooing was a tradition that was not only spiritual, but also a signifier of a girl becoming a women and ready for marriage, repelling spirits from entering the body, and enabled her to achieve life after death. The Ainu women would be tattooed at a young age and each interval of the girl’s life, the tattoo would be expanded (26). The way these people had their tattoos done were to first create a small cut on the girl’s upper lip by using a knife and then to rub soot into it to form the first dot. Every year, a few more incisions would take place until she had reached marrying age (27). By that time, the initial dot should be surrounding her mouth and worked its way up to the ears (28). For those with bad imaginations, think of the Joker’s makeup from the Batman series. Other than the tattoos on the girl’s face, the Ainu women had tattoos among their arms and hands to also repel the evil spirits away from their bodies and to repel diseases. These tattoos were engraved into a girl around the same time she received her first tattoo. When the Japanese government banned people to receive tattoos, the Ainu women cried in an outraged as their tattoos were a qualification for the afterlife as part of their religion and for marriage. One report of these outrages includes the Ainu people saying: “They say the gods will be angry, and that the women can’t marry unless they are tattooed. They are less apathetic on this than on any subject, and repeat frequently, ‘It’s part of our religion’” (29). Even though tattoos were banned in all of Japan, the Ainu people had continued their tradition in secrecy (30).

The Ainu people had been tattooing for centuries before criminal and decorative tattooing took place. Many people believe the yakuza came about around the time that criminals tattooing were being put into place and replaced by covering them up with decorative tattoos. Anyone with a tattoo during these times had been ostracized by their own families; thus, the tattooed members got together and created a new family, a family now known as the yakuza (31). The townspeople were already scared of the criminals with one marking on their forehead or arm, so the yakuza began combining and expanding their tattoos to cover their criminal tattoos. Tattoos, during the feudal years, were done by tebori as mentioned before. Because of the process to get tebori, yakuza thought of it as a challenge to prove their loyalty, courage, and commitment to their new “family”(32, page 322). These members of society were often causing trouble, which links to the idea of the Japanese people that all people with tattoos are bad people. In today’s society, the number of yakuza that are going out and getting tattooed to prove their loyalty to their respective groups had decreased significantly compared to years prior to the 1990s (33, page 324). The members of the yakuza are now trying to hide their ties with the yakuza by deciding not to get tattoos. This is so they would no longer be discriminated against by society and to get a well-paying job or loans.

Often wives, daughters, and mistresses undergo getting an irezumi tattoo to prove their loyalty and obedience to their yakuza man (34). Author Shoko Tendo was the daughter of a yakuza boss, who also got a tattoo in the style of irezumi when she was only 20 years of age. She, however, did not get the tattoo to express her association with the yakuza but as way to describe her troubled past. This tattoo, as described by Shoko herself, was the mark of a new life for her that did not involve violence or drugs (35).

As Shoko Tendo, there are many people who have tattoos that are not a member of the yakuza – such as celebrities and average, regular people. Shoko Tendo had said in her interview about her book Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter "Musicians and artists can get away with showing off their tattoos, but a delinquent like me does her best to hide them." Namie Amuro and Ayumi Hamasaki are both currently famous singers that have tattoos. Because of these singers, younger people are now beginning to have an interest in getting a tattoo (36). However, when these two women appear on Japanese national television, their tattoos are normally covered by clothing or censored out. Though, not all stars have tattoos give a positive influence on society, for example Sakai Noriko. She was involved in a drug scandal and media had pushed the old idea about anyone that is tattooed is a bad person based on her ankle tattoo. Yoichi Wada, Square Enix boss, had showed up at the launch party for Final Fantasy XIII with the l’cie symbol “tattooed” onto his hand. He had messaged his fans on social media site “Twitter” that he may not be able to go return to Japan because of the tattoo. Wada was not joking about not being able to return back to Japan. However, at the event, Wada had washed off his tattoo to reveal that it was indeed a temporary tattoo, which I will get to later (37).

In the experiment conducted by Meiko Yamada, one tattooed person had reported that many women in her workplace in Japan had cosmetic tattoo done, which makes it seem okay to others (38, page 12). For those that are unaware of what cosmetic tattoos are, they are basically make-up tattooed onto the woman’s skin. This was popular do to in the 1930s in America and in the Southern states in today’s society (39).

While in Canada, the people wear their tattoos proudly; when they return to Japan, they hide their tattoos from the public and when they cannot, they simply tell others that their tattoo is temporary (40, pages 15 and 17). Telling people that you have a temporary tattoo is okay in the Japanese eyes for it is not going against the idea that your body is given to your by your parents. If you ink your body, you are basically going against and disrespecting your parents. At the beginning of the interview, all the participants can indicated that their tattoos were for fashion; however, by the end of the interview, their tattoos was being used to definite themselves (41, page 20). “While their tattoos might symbolize rebellion or resistance against authority or the norms of society, their tattoos also express an understanding, respect for, and acceptance of their home culture” (42, page 21).

In today’s society, most Japanese people would not acknowledge the existence of tattooing being done in their country and if they do, they believe that it is only yakuza members that would do such a thing to their body (43, page 26). As you had just read, the views on tattoos in Japan are very negative due to their historical past but few are seen as okay in the minds of the Japanese people depending on what the situation may be – i.e., are they temporary tattoos or cosmetic?

Sources: ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tattoo?show=3&t=1333483567 (1) ____________________________________________________________________ Manami Okazaki, “Tattoos come out of hiding,” The Japan Times, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fs20080826a3.html (2)(36) ____________________________________________________________________ Meiko Yamada, “Japanese Tattooing from the Past to the Present” http://www.tattoos.com/mieko.htm (3)(17)(21) ____________________________________________________________________ Mieko Yamada, “Meanings of Tattoos in the Context of Identity-Construction: A Study of Japanese Students in Canada.” (4)(18)(19)(38)(40)(41)(42) ____________________________________________________________________ Mieko Yamada, “Westernization and cultural in Tattooing Practices in Contemporary Japan,” (5)(6)(7)(32)(33) ____________________________________________________________________ Donald Richie, “The Japanese Tattoo,” (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(15)(43) ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.ehow.com/info_10043392_tebori-tattoo-technique.html (14)(16) ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.vanishingtattoo.com/tattoo_museum/chinese_japanese_tattoos.html (20)(22)(23)(24) ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.vanishingtattoo.com/tattooing_among_japans_ainu.htm (26)(28)(29)(30)(31) ____________________________________________________________________ http://inventorspot.com/articles/art_yakuza_japans_tattooed_men_w_6920 (34) ____________________________________________________________________ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/27/books.japan (35) ____________________________________________________________________ http://kotaku.com/5488997/in-japan-getting-a-tattoo-means-you-can-never-go-home (37) ____________________________________________________________________ http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/07/31/lip-tattooing-is-the-latest-fad/ (39) ____________________________________________________________________