subject: Eastern Exotic: Chinese Tattoo Designs [print this page] Eastern Exotic: Chinese Tattoo Designs Eastern Exotic: Chinese Tattoo Designs
Looking for a change from the usual designs? Maybe you're just a little tired of hearts, wings, lettering, and key tattoos. Why not spice things up with Chinese tattoo designs? They certainly have a distinctive appearance and carry an air of mystery and ancient lore about them!
Tattoos In China
Despite the wealth of Chinese-inspired and Chinese tattoo designs, tattoo as an art form is not popular in China and other Far Eastern cultures. Though tattoos have indeed been practiced since ancient times, it was usually for identification, not for beautification.
Of particular note was its use as a way of labeling criminals whose sins could not be forgiven. After being marked, usually somewhere easily seen, the criminal was usually banished. Even if he wanted to go back later on, everyone would still know what he or she did because of the markings.
Outside of the mainstream, the Dulong, Li, and Dai minorities carry much stronger traditions of skin art. Many of their designs were meant to provide some talismanic purpose. In the case of the Dulong, the ancient purpose of facial tattoos for women was meant to make them uglier and less likely to be taken away as slaves or to be raped. Today, the ancient purpose is moot, but the tradition continues.
Even today, tattoos are thought of by the Chinese as being dirty and bad. This is a stigma from ancient times, but the prevalence of tattoos in organized crime also reinforces this view. Still, the youth are a little more open-minded about it.
Chinese Tattoo Designs Elements
When it comes to Chinese tattoo designs, the first thing that comes to mind is hanzi. Also known as "kanji" in Japanese and "hanja" in Korean, these characters are the written language of the Chinese culture. Because Chinese characters are whole words, a whole lot were needed there are over 45,000 of them. This is almost a polar opposite of many other languages, where "letters" are chained together to spell words.
Hanzi carries a meaning per character. Sometimes, a concept will require more than one hanzi, where in English a single word would do, and vice versa. Hanzi also carry similar meanings in the Japanese and Korean contexts. Popular hanzi for tattoos circulate around positive aspects of life, such as "destiny", "way", "courage", "strength", "love", and "luck".
A common element to Chinese-inspired designs is the Eastern dragon, which is long and wingless (or who has very small wings), long whiskers, and beards. Dragons are sacred in Chinese culture, though some dragons were certainly evil.
Phoenixes are also favorites. These birds of fire represent the power of life and rebirth. Indeed, dragons and phoenixes were seen as counterparts, one being seen as yin, and the other as yang. They complemented and balanced each other.
When it comes to choosing from the many Chinese tattoo designs, it would be wise to do extensive research, especially if you plan to get a hanzi tattoo. We wouldn't want to get the wrong character inked into our skin, now would we?
