To this day Chinese tattoos have been a popular tattoo choice, from dragons to characters there has only been one person to become China’s first tattoo enthusiast. Liu Ming became China’s first man of tattoos. He is currently 50 years old from Henan province and has 90 percent of his body covered in tattoos. In 2008 he had a count of 200 tattoos. He received a new tattoo of the Olympic rings from the Beijing Olympics on his forehead along with the Olympic torch along the side of his body. He decided to squeeze in the Olympic rings and torch in 2007 after he attended a celebration for the games.

It is crazy to think that someone from a culture that first believed that tattoos were seen so negatively has gotten almost his whole body covered in tattoos. He wanted to put the Olympic tattoos on his body to change people’s minds about Chinese always being so conservative. He believes that tattoo artists and those with tattoos don’t have to be bad people but that those same people can also be patriotic.

Coming from an Asian home, my parents never accepted the idea of tattoos. They never thought about the whole concept of having permanent ink on my skin as a good thing. They believed it was a way for bad people to show off how bad they are and make people around them scared. It was never seen as a way of expression to them. Just the mention or talk about tattoos made them freak out and ask if my siblings and I were really stupid enough to get one. It’s different growing up in a generation where tattoos are so cool and everyone wants one so they can express who they are in a way that they feel comfortable with and then thinking about the past and how tattoos were only seen in a negative way. 

Sources:

http://www.imaginechina.com/clientLightBoxEn.ic?id=30105&lang=en&viewtype=1

http://www.picsgen.com/extreme-tattoos/chinese-tattoo-enthusiast-liu-ming/

http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-08/29/content_16930235.htm