Pattaya, Thailand - For most of us, tattoos are what you might end up with after having one too many brews at a place like Thailand's Pattaya beach resort, famed for its multitude of bars, bar girls and about 200 tattoo parlours. But for the tattooists gathering in Pattaya this weekend for the Second World Tattoo Arts Festival and Exhibition, tattooing is apparently all about art and pursuit of high standards in this unique trade.
"Drawings can be erased, but tattoos are permanently on your body, so it's different than normal art," Pattaya Tattoo Artists Association head Pairoj Geowlaw said Friday at a seminar on the ethics of tattooing.
The festival being held Friday through Sunday at the beach resort 90 kilometres east of Bangkok has drawn more than 100 tattoo artists from Asia, Europe and the United States who will display their skills at their private booths during the day and in contests at night.
The festival - organized by Joy Wong, daughter of Thailand's first "tattoo artist," Johnny Wong - was also designed to raise the ethical and professional standards of local tattooists.
"For me, there are three rules in the tattoo trade," Joy Wong told a seminar that kicked off the tattoo festival. "You don't give tattoos to minors under the age of 20, you have to use clean instruments and you don't give a tattoo to someone who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs."
Given the number of bars in Pattaya (some estimate well over 6,000), that last rule might be a tall order.
"I notice there are quite a few tattoo parlours right next to bars in Pattaya," said Dragon Edong, a Filippino tattoo artist who plies his trade in Saipan, an island in the Pacific that is part of the Northern Mariana Islands.
"But there are good reasons not to give a tattoo to someone who is drunk," Edong explained. "For one thing, people move too much when they are drunk, and you have to remain still when getting a tattoo."
"And secondly, alcohol thins the blood, so drunk people bleed too much and that blurs the ink," he added.
As for giving tattoos to minors, Edomng had this to say: "Minors don't know what they want, so they might ask you to put their girlfriend's name on their arm or a boyfriend's, and then one month later, they have broken up already."
