In traditional Thai tattooing there are rules that must be followed. It is known as the Law of the Tattoo and Arjan masters are very serious about what is expected of their devotees. They are told to follow the law exactly. Young men sit on the floor of a studio waiting their turn and are told to read the rules and seriously consider how the tattoo will change their lives.
1. Be obedient and honor your parents.
2. Be faithful to your wife.
3. Don’t take drugs.
4. Don’t eat fruit and food that has fallen from the tree. Only eat fresh food.
5. Men with tattoos should not perform oral sex with women.
( pictured left: arjan John )

“Today in Bangkok there are more than one-hundred tattoo arjan…” Jimmy Wong says. “There are more today than before. Tattoo is popular and many young Thai men cannot pay for western style tattoos. They see people in movies and on Thai TV with western style tattoos and they want this… But the cost is too much. These young men go to the tattoo arjan in their neighborhoods or they go to the temples, like Wat Bang Phraw. They get Sak Yan, a traditional tattoo but it is still a tattoo. They feel like they are being cool. Just like kids in New York. This is interesting to me…”

Jimmy’s studio on Soi Five off of Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok exists between two worlds. One of Thai tattoo tradition and the other of contemporary tattoo sensibility. Bangkok is fast becoming a modern, highly westernized city. Along the lower numbered Soi on Sukhumvit there are Starbuck’s coffee shops, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. They are all crammed with moneyed Thai people and westerners who need a fix from their part of the globe. A globe that is increasingly becoming the same everywhere.

Jimmy negotiates between these two tattoo worlds and is knowledgeable of both. He is very respectful and friendly with many Thai tattoo arjan and understands the significance of their work.

“There are more young men in Bangkok getting tattooed with magical tattoos,” Jimmy says. “They think this will improve the odds in their lives. They get a Gow Yod, the Seven Peaks tattoo as a first tattoo. It will make them bulletproof or un-cuttable by knives… Gang members in Bangkok are getting more bulletproof tattoos… The Bangkok chief of police asked tattoo arjan to stop giving young men bulletproof tattoo charms. He said the police are having a hard time to intimidate gang members. The gang members don’t care what the police say. A few months ago, the police shot a gang member many times but the kid got up and ran away. He wasn’t hurt…

“Bangkok change a lot but it still Asia,” Jimmy continues. “This still different part of the world, no matter how many Starbucks come here.”

Traditional Thai tattooing emphasizes the basic power of the tattoo process and how it can reorient a person’s sense of self and their concept of the world. Thai tattoo arjan use ritual and mystification to elevate the significance of their tattoos. After receiving a tattoo, young men feel energized with a new sense of control over themselves. This type of emotional reordering is a critical aspect of tattooing everywhere, but the intensely superstitious beliefs of Thai people are comforted by their traditional tattoo process. Young men patronize tattoo arjan with utmost sincerity and emotional commitment. They wait for hours in an arjan’s studio, anticipating the positive benefits of their tattoos. This sense of devotion between a master and students is one of the basic tenants of Asian culture.

“In the past arjan might not have charged for their tattoos,” Jimmy says. “Now this is changing. With the popularity of tattooing everywhere around the world, many arjan charge big money. Some have become celebrities in Thai and western media. Everything is everything now… But in my opinion, there is something Asian about most of the designs used in tattooing. I think that more than fifty percent of all tattoos somehow use Asian design. Asian art has beauty and it has meaning. I think people feel this deep meaning and see the beauty and like it.

“Asian art has existed for thousands of years, Jimmy continues. “The designs have been recycled for thousands of years. This make Asian design very pure. This like a kind of perfection. They become pure meaning and pure beauty. All the designs mean something and they are deep. This is where the power come from with Asian design, this sense of purity.”

In our world today there are layers of experience and information that collide together into an asymmetrical system of meaning. The globalizing process reorders disassociated elements of meaning and pushes them together as never before. In its own way, Jimmy’s Bangkok tattoo shop is a part of this process… People from very different parts of the world sit together and share their commonalities. The shop is a metaphor for this dynamic process everyone around the globe struggles to reconcile.

In the more traditional tattoo studios of Bangkok, arjan are located in simple neighborhoods and continue to give advice and solace to the young men they tattoo. They are also a part of the global process that unfolds nightly in Jimmy’s shop. Arjan Thong, located in the Talad Plue neighborhood, arjan John and arjan Lek who tattoo at the Tung Set-tee (Fields of Millionaires) Temple located near the Tongburi district, arjan Heng who tattoos in the Khow-san road district, arjan Prayot who tattoos in the Din Dang neighborhood and the master tattoo monks at Wat Bang Phraw; Monk Ya, Monk Doy, Monk Ding and Monk Bin are all a part of a larger global process. The increasing numbers of young men who patronize the traditional tattooers follow the global tattoo craze in their own way. ( left: arjan Heng , righth arjan John )

There are more than one-hundred arjan now in Bangkok and many of the new ones are phony impersonators capitalizing on the current tattoo trend that has spilled over from the West. But the sincere and genuine arjan are a part of a process that is being refocused in today’s globalizing world. They tattoo the Gow-Yod Nine Peaks, the Omlong (hair between Buddha’s eyebrows) symbol and an assortment of Yan geometric grid-like designs on young Thai men who are disenfranchised and alienated from the spoils of the current burst of economic activity in places like Bangkok. The tattoos act as equalizers for young men who look to them for fairness and fortune in an unfair game.

The motives of the young men are pristine and sublime; simple but also deep. They attend their specialist monks in hopes of redemption. At Wat Bang Phraw, Monk Ding (left) specializes in issues of love and the heart. His power will help a young man find companionship and prevent feelings of loneliness. He also tattoos charms that prevent accidental injury or getting killed in a car crash. Monk Doy specializes in helping young men to find a dedicated and honest wife. Life is a crapshoot for everyone in today’s world. The power of the tattoos is thought to level the playing field.

All the arjan see their tattoos as a part of an encompassing cosmology. Arjan Thong is a teacher and believes his tattoos are a gift to help people to do good things with their lives. As he tattoos, his accumulated knowledge is passed on. By the time he finishes a large back tattoo the young man listens and absorbs Arjan Thong’s knowledge and becomes a better person.

Jimmy ( right ) and his tattoos are also a part of this same encompassing sense of the world. He has witnessed a change in his art form recently with both enthusiasm and skepticism.

“I have seen the change of styles and designs,” Jimmy says. “The young generation now gets tribal designs. I have to be familiar with it all. Unlike traditional tattoo arjan, a customer can walk in here and ask for anything from a traditional dragon to modern tribal. For twenty years the designs were all the same; eagles, snakes, dragons… Now all the new designs have come in. Before, you did tattooing as a way to feed your family. There were no rock and roll stars, tattoo fans... It was a job.

“After 1989 everything changed,” Jimmy continues. “I became busy with customers. I mentioned this to my Thai friends and they were all shocked. ‘What! People care about this thing?’ They said. The 1991 Amsterdam convention was a very big thing. It was the first time I had left Thailand. I cried when I was at the Bangkok airport waiting for my plane… ‘Wow, I said. Tattooing is bringing me to Europe.’ Now, more than 200 tattoo artists visit me here at my shop. Things have really changed in Thailand with the tattooing.

“My daughter and I just had the first Bangkok tattoo convention. People came from all over the world. There were traditional arjan at our convention sitting next to tattoo artists from Japan and Europe… Think how much this tattoo world has changed. I am amazed!”