I love tattoos. I have a Celtic armband on my left arm and a large Celtic cross on my right arm.
My wife has a sweet Celtic knot on the small of her back.
I’m currently in the mood to get another one, but I haven’t decided on a design. I was thinking maybe an Imperial Logo on my calf or something.
I will not get a tattoo that shows while I’m at work, so my locations are limited in that regard.
my tattoo looks like okinawan mitsu-domoe, more or less. falls in the category of “triskelion”. comments range from “oh a swastika” to “are those 3 oak leaves?”.
In which cultures? To make a stament like that, you really aught to back it up with something. And "my mom/history teacher/uncle Bob doesn’t count. Something that you either link to or is coherent enough for someone to find on a Google. I’ll post a bit latter a few link prooving that some cultures honor body markings, M’kay?
ya but those tattoos were generally on the face for one and two were of a derogitory manner befitting a criminal.
Well we could start with the Maori, several tribes in Africa and south america and work our way up from there. It sounds like gfx is just a retard.
i dont know about tattoing, but piercing and some modifications stuff there be some tribes that do and its not for prisoners.
Cacique Raoni for exemple:
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/photos/diplo/diplo0211/hp010859.jpg
http://www.arfoc.org.br/uploads/perfil/RAONI.jpg
http://www.areaindigena.hpg.ig.com.br/raoni.gif
Cacique btw is his title… basicly like a quite the awesome dude that rules… or in other words… the leader of his tribe, mkay 
[I]Shaolinlueb
nope i havent. dont intend too. i think its kinda stupid…[/I]
I agree here. I think the whole process of tattooing your martial arts organization is the equivalent of masturbation. You are simply trying to project and broadcast what you percieve is coolness so that everyone can see you are a spiffy martial artist.
The only thing that should tell the tale of what you are and what you do are the scars of your training. That should be telling enough.
Also, you might be shocked at the discrimination that flies your way in the search for gainful employment. Not to mention some jobs prohibit any sort of tattoo of any sort…
Employers may refuse to hire you for visible tattoos but otherwise is discrimination.
You are correct about it being discrimination, but they will never tell you why you were overlooked for a job or why you were let go. If they fire you for a tattoo, it will be “Performance Issues”, or something of that nature. Discrimination always exists, but in more clever forms as society grows more litigous…
This is true. Thats why you have to be sneaky. Like Yakuza. Get what they call a “business suit”. In essence you get tattoos that would not reveal themselves while in business attire. No one I work with would even suspect I have tattoos much less that I could kill them with my bear hands.
Now that I think about it my Sifu has a tat of Tamo. I think its nice, and very respectful to the memory of one who has contributed so much.
Sifu is an established man and has chosen to donate part of his temple to the memory and respect of an individual and ideal that has had a major influence in the art that has formed his life.
Good point about visible tattoos. I have to work around clients that might not look at ink as a good thing. So I have all mine where a short sleeved shirt will cover it. I have many friends that have no idea I have any work done at all.
As far as letting others know I am a martial artist by the ink I have…see above. I did it for me and no other reason. It is not uncovered much and sure isn’t an ad about what I do in my spare time. But I have seen many people that did that…Oh look at me I studied , fill in the blank, see how dangerous I am. 
But that is how I feel about folks that put bumper stickers on their cars telling what MA school they attend. But like my skin it is their car, so what do I know. 
In which culture? Chinese.
I’m very much aware of the fact that some other culture honour tatoos, but they also put symbols of religious importance on themselves, not Chinese characters.
For tatooing for soldiers, this is a fact in the Song dynasty. Anecdote: The famous Nothern Song dynsty general Di Qing raised to this position from a common solider, hence he has tatoos on his face from his soldiering days. It seemed undiginified to the emperor, who offered to remove the tatoo for him. Di Qing refused and said: “Please leave it be as a sign of encouragence to the soldiers of the empire, that even a common soldier, fighting brave enough, can become a general.”
tatoo used called CiZi in Chinese. Which means “pierced characters” ( suprise suprise ). In it’s original form was a punishiment for criminals. Tatoos were put on their face. In Song dynasty, tatoos of characters were putted on soldier’s face, arm or palm. This was done as a form of social control, so that the military and the civilians can be identified and hence controlled separately. However, Song was a heavily scholarized society, and military and martial classes were lowly regarded. Hence the popular Chinese view of “good men don’t become soldiers”. I don’t agree with it, but that’s just how it was. You can find tons of this kind of information if you search for (CiZi history) on google.
The reason tatoo has always being regarded as a lowly activity is because of its direct conflict to confuciusm. In confuciusm, it’s uptmost important to be filial. This include taking care of your body. The body was regarded as a gift from the parents, hence damaging, disfiguring it in anyway was seen as being unfilial. This is also the reason traditional Han Chinese don’t cut their hair, and instead coil them on top of their head in a knot. The queue that was commonly viewed with Chinese was actually a Machurian custom, which included shaving the front half of the head. Needless to say when this style was being introduced, it encountered a lot of resistance. That’s why Manchurians needed to push a “cut the hair or your head” policy, but I digress.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with getting a nice butterfly or something as a tatoo. Just that by getting a Chinese character tatoo, it’ll remind a lot of Chinese of this fact. They’ll probably snicker at you inside for doing something so stupid. At least I do :D.
Agree with me or not, just keep this info in mind if you are trying to get a Chinese character tatoo.
And red: Oh no! I’m a retard! waves hand madly in air :rolleyes:
Nope. I don’t think you are a retard. I just figured you should let us in on how you came to have such strong opinions on the subject. Your point of identification and military are exactly why I have them. Tow, in fact. One is a meat tag (Silly jar-head tradition), the other is Jayne Wayne (also silly jar-head tradition). To anyone who wasn’t a U.S. Marine, these things are meaningless. The tat I’m considering would also be meaningless to anyone who doesn’t know the importance of the last line of the Dragon Warrior code. Or even that it is something other than just another tribal arm band. Even then, they’d have to realize it was Chinese and be able to read it.
listen kids
let the kids who want tattoos have tattoos, no need for disrescpt
let the kids who dont want tattoos not have tattoos, no need for disrepsdstc
everybody happy now
you call me fat?
im fat, but i can lose weight if i want
and what about you who is UGLY?
HAHAHAHAHAH!
And every fat-so says they can loose weight, but they never do… So which is worse, to be hideious and unable to do something about it, or be huge and unwilling to do something about it.
Worse than that…
… would be an ugly person who gets a tat of something foo-foo on thier belly, gains 200 lbs, then goes about showing the formerly recognizable image to unsuspecting victoms.
hey! i was helping everybody out
dont me turning my magic against me
this guys are all fit… all fighters and soccer players bunch of em…
funny… position… they got there though
http://img77.echo.cx/img77/2977/boiolasrj26or.jpg
You missing the point. We like to fight on-line! If we loose, all we have to do is delete our posts…