Dear everybody, as promised I am going to
share my interview with Miguel and Smilla with you. The both have one tattoo
and shared their story with me. EnjoyJ :
The tattoos and their meanings
Smilla is 18 years old and from and got her
first tattoo in The Hague at the age of 17. That is her only tattoo so far and
it is located at the back. The tattoo consists of three turtles which are
climbing up from her back to her neck. She got three turtles because her lucky
number was and is three. The turtle on top has a Samsara symbol in it, meaning
never ending change and continuous flow of life. She choose the spot on her body as the back
and neck are the central part of her
body and as the turtles climb upwards it symbolizes moving into a positive
direction upwards. It means to never get down. The tattoo took about 1 hour to
be made and she described the pain as tolerable. Smilla got the turtles
tattooed because she used to live in Panama, where the first things she used to
see was a turtle hutch. She got it as a marker to a start of her new chapter in
life as a university student and to remind her of the constant change in life. 
Miguel on the other hand is 21 and from
Portugal and Africa and got his first and only tattoo at the age of 18 in Shanghai.
The tattoo is a sentence written in Hebrew which means translated ‘Who is like
God’ located at his right ankle. This spot was chosen as his piercings before
were only concentrated on the right side of the body. Therefore he decided that
he wants to keep one side of his body pure. He left the left side pure as he is
also left handed. The ankle was also chosen because from his point of view
tattoos not favorable in society and he wanted to have it somewhere where he
can hide it. The tattoo took over an hour and he described the pain at the
ankle as really strong but bearable. He got this tattoo due to the fact that
his grandmother was sick with lung cancer for the third time. As the results of
her treatment did not look favorable he decided to make a tattoo to honor her. The
sentence is connected to his grandmother as she used to teach him the Bible in
Hebrew. The sentence is also his biblical name ‘Michael’ which means God. For
him it signifies to keep his feet and the ground to net get above himself.
Tattoos and perceptions
Smilla is so far the only person who had no
negative experiences with tattoos. Neither her close environment nor strangers
made negative comments or anything in that direction. She has the tattoo on a
spot which can be hidden easily to not get bored of it and because of possible
future careers. On the other hand, Miguel’s family had mixed feelings toward
his tattoo. While his grandmother loved it, his mother hated it since it stays
on permanently and his dead did not say anything about it. His friends also
liked his tattoo. The only negative encounters can be found in Miguel’s old
church group in Shanghai. For them his tattoo combined with him smoking made
him seen like a bad Christian and they called him that. Once, a Jewish lady came up to him and asked
if the tattoo was for someone of his family who died in the war. When he said
no, she told him that he can never be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
When I asked both what they think about the
current tattoo trend in society, Miguel answered that he beliefs that the tattoo
trend already ended. He sees tattoos as a personal symbol for what people want
to be reminded of; he sees a tattoo as artistic. However, the art is created by
the tattoo artists doing the tattoo and for the person getting it done it is a
symbol. For Smilla on the other hand, tattoos are a way of art, a way to
express yourself and a reminder of something. She says that still some people
think that tattoos are connected to crazy or rebel people but more people get
them which lead to their perception in society to change. Further, her opinion is that more and more people
get them because they know they can remove them and it is becoming a trend, she
thinks that it is stupid: you take them with you your whole life so they should
have a meaning or reason behind them.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on this post (:
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