Ever since young, the idea of tattoos and body piercings have always intrigued me in the most fascinating ways possible. I remember going to an Audi car exhibition when I was barely 4 years old and was given a temporary Audi logo tattoo that I loved so much on my skin, that night when my Mother washed it off me I was inconsolable in tears. I remember walking pass tattoo parlours watching grown men and women being held at the mercy of the tattoo artist’s tattoo gun, the buzzing sound of the needles penetrating the skin somehow didn’t scare me even though the looks of agony on their faces clearly said otherwise.
Then, I read that tattoos are associated with gangs and are often connected with violence and secret societies. “Good people” don’t do tattoos, and tattoos aren’t good. I read that the origin of tattoos came from gangs, but slowly became more popular in today’s society as a form of body art and self-expression. In a sense, a tattoo also symbolises your bravery in pain tolerance because as much as I am not afraid to get on the tattooing chair, tattoos do hurt.
I was never really into the game of hair dyes, lipsticks or nail polishes, as were the more common body modifications and beautifying agents that society generally accepted. Cosmetic surgery is something I will never try as long as I am sane, and anything temporary just didn’t really appeal to me.
Come 2016, I’ve once made promises to someone that we would get matching chain tattoos on our wrists, but that dream that I once so looked forward to was scrapped and very thankfully so. Yet, my burning desire to get inked only became more and more overwhelming until the day just a few days before my first A level paper, I decided to get my first ink from an inexperienced artist. The ink wasn’t bad, but I will probably never visit her again because I have now connections with an experienced and fully licensed artist. I remember the first time I held my arm outstretched and being asked if I was scared. I told her to go ahead because there was no turning back.
The second the needle penetrated my skin, all the memories of my youth experiences came back. The Audi tattoo encounter, the familiar sound of the tattoo gun and the broken promises on the chain tattoos came crashing down on me. All the words I never said, all the emotions I thought I had bottled up for good came pouring down like a waterfall, so much so that I barely felt the pain even though the soreness hit me bad afterwards.
Conservative Asian families and cultures, I was told to never get a visible tattoo and to date I still haven’t got past the mental barrier of getting my arms and legs tattooed even though I have 2 on my inner forearm and biceps. My internship in prison has given me a lot of insight on the tattoos the inmates have, and some of them really do tell a story.
Sometimes, I am insecure because of my education and family background. People don’t usually expect someone like me to get inked because it’ll supposedly “clash” with my background ideals. Nonetheless, I am tired of living under the facade of a “good kid” and as long as we have the rights of self expression, this is how I choose to do it because I’m never good at any other form. I can’t pull off the most basic things other girls my age can, because of my personality, because of my character. I am different. I am not ‘normal’.
I live by these insecurities that do haunt me even though I try my best to put up a confident outer image. I try my best, but these tattoos will come to me and I will embrace them with opened arms.
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