Eastern Tattoo

is Taking Root in Los Angeles

The Connection between Everlasting Color and Cultural Identity

by Serena Hou

Aiko Jones remembers when her mother yanked her shoulder to get a better look at the tattoo. The palm-sized tattoo with two cherry blossoms is framed with clear black lines and light pink petals and a light yellow colored center. Her mother did not say anything, just stared at her with an angry face. She got this tattoo secretly, knowing her mother would see her as a rebel.

“Just by exchanging glances with her, enough justification for what I did was communicated,” said Aiko Jones. “She knew I was old enough to think on my own.”

Aiko Jones is a 19-year-old Japanese American who is double majoring in Social Sciences with a Psychology emphasis and East Asian Languages and Cultures at USC.

Aiko Jones

Although Jones feels deep affection for Japanese culture, she is American born and has only visited Japan for vacations. She knows she missed out on so much Japanese culture. She has no childhood memories of Japan. She can’t communicate in Japanese. For Jones, this tattoo represents the missing part of Japanese culture in her life. An hour and a half of tattooing are like carving all the things that she missed out onto her skin.

Jones started on the tattoo journey not only because of her love for Japanese culture but the self-identification. She followed her heart and even wants to get a Japanese artist to add more fine details on her cherry blossom tattoo in a future trip to Tokyo.

There are more people who are obsessed with Japanese style tattoo in the United States, just like Aiko Jones—the tattoo industry is worth nearly $1.7 trillion. According to the 2016 survey from the Statistic Brain Research Institute, almost 14 percent of Americans have at least one tattoo, which means 45 million U.S. citizens have tattoos. There are almost 21,000 tattoo parlors in the United States.

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Eastern style tattoos have also become one of the options for the growing population of people with tattoos. A 2017 survey from Statista indicated that 55 percent of Americans have an inclination toward Japanese style tattoo, and 51 percent of Americans like Asian character tattoos.

Even though there is an increasing number of people with Asian style tattoos, and Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, most people cannot even tell the differences between Chinese, Japanese or other Asian cultures. Many Asians feel their culture has been ignored or underestimated for a long time. It is the same situation in the tattoo world.

The Chinese Tattoo Artist Hailin Fu

”One of the reasons that I came to Los Angeles is to let Americans realize there are differences between Chinese tattoo and Japanese tattoo,” said by Hailin Fu, the owner of Hailin Tattoo Studio in West Hollywood.

Hailin Fu started his own studio called Lie Huo Tang (also known as Raging Fire) in Shandong, China, and earned a good reputation in China where he became the Chairman of China Tattoo Arts Association. Fu expanded his tattoo territory to Los Angeles in 2013.

The Japanese Tattoo Artist Hori Taka

“I just want to create my tattoo to Americans, to someone who likes me, my style, our culture, especially hand poke,” said by Hori Taka (also known as L.A. Taka) from the Horitoshi Family, the traditional hand-poked tattoo artist in Onizuka Tattoo Studio. “That is what I am trying to do.”

The traditional tattoo technique in Japan

Taka spent almost 15 years on learning the traditional Japanese tattoo technique called hand poke (in Japanese called Tebori) from Master Horitoshi in Tokyo, Japan. He had a tattoo business in Japan for seven and half years, before coming to the United States seven years ago.

Hailin Fu and Hori Taka took a spot in the tattoo industry in Los Angeles, and brought their tattoo spirits and experience from their home countries to the United States. With their viewpoints and opinions, the beauty and the differences between Chinese and Japanese.

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Hailin Tattoo Studio, which located in West Hollywood, has already operated for four years.

Let Chinese tattoos shine in Los Angeles

“When we talk about Asian tattoo, the images popping up in Americans’ mind are Japanese style tattoo,” Fu said. Western people started interacting with Japanese tattoo in the 19th century, which was long before Chinese tattoo. “It is easy for Americans to ignore where the elements originally come from,” said Fu, who claims that a great majority of the elements in Japanese tattoo are from China.

Hailin Fu's & Hori Taka's beliefs in Tattoo.

Fu believes the Asian tattoo communities must more to be understood by Americans. “If you want to let people accept your idea, first of all, you need to approach them,” said Fu. Holding art exhibitions and setting up academic exchanges in the United States can help Asian tattoo artists step into the American art world directly and influence them slowly.

“I need to show the better art pieces to Western people because people will only accept better things,” Fu said.

Only earning money from the Chinese community in Los Angeles is not what Fu wants. That is why he chose West Hollywood to start his business. Fu tilted up his head and said confidently, “I stay here. I will not go anywhere, even though it is possible that I would not make money here.”

Hailin is making a koi fish tattoo, which means luck in Chinese.

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Taka and Jiro work in Onizuka Tattoo Studio which movied from little Tokyo to Gardena in Los Angeles.

The forbidden love in Japan

Tattoos were used to mark prisoners in previous centuries. “It (tattoo) was like a marking stuff, as a punishment,” Taka told about the Edo period (1600–1868 AD) in the Japanese tattoo history.

Japanese tattoo has a long history since Jomon period (14,000BC–300BC). According to My Modern Met, tattoos had transformed into a kind of punishment to put on prisoners and criminals in the Edo period. Tattoo served this role for almost 1000 years in Japan.

“After the prisoners who got out of the prison, they started to cover up their tattoos,” Taka said, explaining the early demand for tattoos. “That is why we have to cover up the whole entire things (tattoos).”

The Japanese Tattoo Artist Jiro

“Tattoo in Japan is not for showing things,” said by Jiro Yaguchi, a Japanese tattoo artist who currently works in Onizuka Tattoo Studio. Jiro said it was hard for Japanese people to find tattoo shops in public without others’ recommendations in the past.

Tattoo in Japan is not for showing things. — Jiro Yaguchi

Taka said that getting a job as a tattooed Japanese person has difficulties. When he followed his Master Horitoshi to attend a National Tattoo Convention in the United States, he realized that language is not a barrier if people are obsessed with your tattoos. He left Japan and started his tattoo business in Los Angeles.

What I do is if someone loves our culture in tattoos that kind of stuff, I will try to help those kinds of people. — Hori Taka

Jiro said he does not want to go back to Japan because he could feel the appreciation in the United States more than in Japan. Both Jiro and Taka came to the U.S. to create artwork on white skin.

“Even though I am a Japanese, I am not 100 percent understand Japanese culture,” Taka said. Unlike Hailin Fu, the main purpose for Taka to stay in Los Angeles is not to strengthen Japanese culture. He said, “What I do is if someone loves our culture in tattoos that kind of stuff, I will try to help those kinds of people.”

Taka is using the traditional technique—hand poke—to make a Japanese tattoo. Video by Mason Lee

Unveil the mystery of Chinese and Japanese tattoos

“Personally, I feel like there are more stories behind Chinese tattoos in general, ”said Gloria Zhang, the only female tattoo artist in Hailin Tattoo Studio

Due to the 5,000–year history, China has a great number of stories about Chinese mythology or historical heroes, emperors and warriors. Many tattoo designs are based on the characters in those ancient stories, such as Sun Wukong (also known as Monkey King) who is a mythological figure in the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West. There’s also Guan Yu who is the general in the Three Kingdoms period, or Liu Bei who is the first ruler of the state of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms period.

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Sun Wukong

Guan Yu

Liu Bei

“The biggest difference between Chinese and Japanese tattoos is that Chinese tattoos usually use Gongbi style and Xieyi style,” Zhang said.

The difference between Chinese and Japnese style tattoo

Gongbi also means meticulous. It focuses on the details precisely and perfectly by utilizing the highly-detailed brushstrokes.

Xieyi style is the freehand brush style in Chinese traditional painting technique which emphasizes the importance of essential spiritual characteristics instead of pursuing the realism and the similarity of an object.

“Chinese art is more introverted,” Fu said, adding that Chinese people care about the meaning behind an art piece rather than how similar and realistic the art piece is. “It is abstract,” he said. That can make it hard for Western people to get the meaning without knowing the history and culture of China.

“Chinese culture in general influences the whole Japanese culture,” Jiro said.

Dragons in the Chinese and Japanese world

Take the novel Water Margin which plays an important role in Japanese tattoo culture as an example. Water Margin, also known as Outlaws of the Marsh (Japanese: Suikoden), is a Chinese novel which tells the story of 108 outlaws who gather at Mount Liang and form a side army before they get the call-up by the empire to fight against invaders.

People started to imitate the characters’ tattoos from the ukiyo-e illustrations which accompanied with Water Margin, such as dragons, waves, flames, koi fish and cherry blossom, and put those elements on their bodies. (Ukiyo-e is a Japanese art style which was popular during the 17th through 19th centuries.) The painting style of the ukiyo-e illustrations in Water Margin has already influenced Japanese tattoo culture for several centuries.

The stereotypes of tattoos in Asia

No matter in China or Japan, the stereotypes of tattoo are that tattoos are affiliated with gangsters in China and Yakuza gang members in Japan.

Rui Oeo, a Chinese girl, said one of the reasons Chinese people do not see tattoos as a good thing is due to an old saying in Chinese — “Our bodies— to every hair and bit of skin— are received by us from our parents, and we must not presume to injure or wound them. This is to respect for your parents.”

The taboo of tattoos in Asian society

In China, before getting a tattoo, people need to consider their future jobs carefully because the stereotypes of tattoos are still in Chinese society. People will think tattooed people are not appropriate to do certain kinds of jobs in China. “Such as government officers or white collar jobs,” said by Rui Oeo.

In some of China’s provinces, there are the official rules to point out that people with tattoos will not be hired, such as a policeman in Sichuan.

The potential taboo of tattooed people also exists in Japan.

Aiko Jones said she was asked by an elderly man on a beach in Japan to use a towel to cover up her tattoo. “It’s just an old belief, and outdated belief,” she said.

According to Inside Japan Tour, in Japan, people who have tattoos are banned from hot springs, swimming pools, waterparks, and some public beaches. Some hot spring places will ask people to cover up their tattoos with a plaster or a bandage. Jones said that she needs to use a towel to cover her cherry blossom tattoo in order to get into hot spring places.

Jones addressed the problem of having the stereotype of tattoos. Because of the prohibition on tattooed people, there are many foreigners who cannot experience the beauty of hot springs in Japan. It causes the negative influence on the tourism industry. “I think they (Japanese) should change policies.”

Gloris is using Gongbi technique to make a tattoo of Xi Wangmu, the highest Chinese goddess.

Tattoos in Your Country

People shared their opinions and experiences on tattoos.

Jiro is checking the customer's healing situation before starting the next step of tattooing.
Left: Chinese style tattoo by Hailin Fu
Right: Japanese style tattoo by Hori Taka

©2017 by Serena Hou