There are no laws specific about tattooing in South Korea, so it's not exactly illegal like some say Korea's medical laws state that only doctors can practice the act of penetrating someone’s skin with a needle, means that yes, it is illegal unless a licensed doctor is doing it. In other words, to be a tattooist in Korea, you must hold a doctor’s license.
So let's get to the chase... is it illegal? No. It's not illegal, when performed by a licensed medical doctor that is. And there you have it, there's the catch.
Tattoo parlors aren't very easy to find here in Korea but getting hooked up with one is pretty easy consider the popularity on Facebook of specific tattoo company working out of Seoul. Everyone is "liking" them. But are they licensed medical doctors?! I highly doubt it. So doesn't this mean they're tattooing illegally? Probably. But like scooters driving on the sidewalks or the under-aged high school kiddies who load up a scooter with 2 or 3 buddies, these things will always occur in Korea and to have the cops try to stop them would be just a waste of time, effort and tax payers' money.
Tattoos have long been regarded as gang-related and actually, up until very recently, those with tattoos that cover two-thirds of their bodies were not allowed to serve in Korea's army and were sent to alternative services.
“People with that many (tattoos) tend to have high accident rates, and since they deal with weapons that have the capability of killing, we tend to exclude them, kind of like what we do with criminals,” said Kwak Yu-suk, an official at the Military Manpower Administration.
And here I thought it was the affiliation with gangs that was the problem. Apparently we tattoo-wearing people are more accident prone. I gotch ya, thanks.
Anyways, tonight I headed out to Anyoung to get my much anticipated tattoo. I've got a new found friend, Chi Cha, in from Thailand and he's a tattoo artist. Snickers' buddy has hooked him up with a one-room apartment which he works out of, tattooing people while he's staying here for a bit in Korea.
Yes, I got a tattoo and it was just as legal as getting one from that notoriously known tattoo company in Seoul but I was a heck of a lot more comfortable -- got it done in the comfort of friends chilling on the bedroom room of my friend's room.
My tattoo isn't done yet. I'll have to go in for "detailing", as I called it. It took two hours though for him to sketch it on my back and then go away at inking me up. Snickers' was quite shocked at how I took it. "Western woman strong like man" is what he's always saying about my boxercise ladies but tonight it was nice to have it said about me. Some of his buddies watched in shock as I bled away on the floor with every inch of skin the Chi Cha tattooed. I took it like a champ... hahaha. I must note though that it wasn't particularly painful, rather ticklish in the middle but felt like fire on the lower part of my back -- quite the strange sensation.
After my two hour session, a Korean girl stepped up to plate, to give a simple one word across the bottom of her neck a try. She was there watching me get my tattoo and we had got into quite the lengthy discussion about working out and Flipside Fitness. Apparently she thought she was pretty tough, so she joked about maybe teaching my girls a thing or two about kicking butt as a woman. "I take hapkido" she noted, "so I'm tough!" Perhaps it's just her feet that were tough though -- I saw those crazy dangerously painful heels she arrived in. As soon as the needle touched her neck she gave a little yelp. Oh gosh, I felt embarrassed for her. She squirmed, she swore, she complained... I think she even squealed too! Ten minutes was all it took for her tattoo to be sketched out and inked in, yet for the next hour or two she sat there complaining. Her boyfriend joked and asked her "are you going to cry?"
"Don't come to my boxercise class", I leaned in and told her, "My girls,... THEY will make you cry!"
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