Tattoo Street acquired its name not just because tattoo parlors happened to congregate here, but through the active intervention of shop owners. Particular credit is due to Kevin Lee, who helped create it through his efforts to promote tattooing.

"In the old days," recalls Lee, "you'd have people in front of your store diverting your customers as soon as you made a bit of a name for yourself." Lee tattoos by hand and has a real talent for controlling the flow of dyes. As a result, he can create tattoos that have brighter, more vivid colors than those made with a gun. In an effort to protect his turf, he trained other artists and encouraged them to set up their own shops on Tattoo Street. He also worked with media outlets, performers and even variety shows to get the word out about the Hsimenting street.

"Once I had a steady stream of customers coming in, I had to begin to consolidate and reorganize my business," he explains. "I had to get rid of artists who didn't do good work or didn't follow the rules." Though he's cut back to four shops and only 15 employees, he still does NT$1.5-2 million per month in sales. Lee says that the tattoo craze is still growing steadily, but he isn't resting on his laurels. Instead, he's continuing to encourage related businesses--shops offering surfboard painting, nail painting, jewelry, and nose and belly-button piercing--to set up on his street to help it retain its pop-cultural cachet.

Influenced by the West, Taiwanese are getting fewer of the warship and tiger tattoos once favored by soldiers and gangsters, and are instead going for images of spirits and demons drawn from Western cartoons and comics.

Bodily symbols

Tattoo Street opens for business at noon, but customers don't start really rolling in until after dark. Usually these are small groups of high-school girls looking to create a footnote to their youth, 18-year-old boys marking their entry into manhood, couples celebrating their love for one another, or even school teams that arrive in rented buses to ensure that their team logos remain part of their lives.

"Students and young adults are our major customers," says Lee. "Interestingly, women account for about 60% of both permanent and temporary tattooing customers." Lee says that when he got into the temporary tattoos business ten years ago in the Lion Plaza shopping arcade they were only popular with certain trades. Young ladies working in "public relations" at hotels liked them because they increased the attractiveness of their bare shoulders and cleavage without damaging their skin. These pros also liked their temporary nature, which allowed them to change them whenever they got tired of them. Lee's experience here led him to correctly predict that there would be a bright future in the market for temporary tattoos for women.

In those days, tattoo artists almost always learned their trade in prison. Imprisoned crime bosses, bored with their lives, would seek out young prisoners with artistic talent and have them carve the outline of an image into their flesh with a needle or a knife. The budding artist would then use one or several needles to poke pigments into the skin. The images were typically of traditional Chinese green dragons and white tigers, or of Japanese-style spirits and floral patterns. The gangsters typically wanted the largest tattoos they could get to demonstrate their courage and ferocity. Naturally, their tattoos also functioned as a symbol of gang affiliation.

The renewed popularity of shorts and Capri pants has inspired some young women to experiment with tattoos on their calves. These highly personalized images are replacing patterned socks and stockings.

First the image, then the color

As times have changed, tattoos have become fashionable with young people. In fact, these days so many people are aching to get tattoos that Lee discourages them from doing too impulsively.

"People getting their first tattoos often get them in inconspicuous spots easily hidden by long-sleeved shirts or trousers, such as on the upper arm, the small of the back, the back of the hand, or the ankle," says Lee. When a new customer comes into the shop, Lee usually first asks where they want their tattoo before recommending designs. He then draws a temporary tattoo on the spot to give them a week to get used to having one and see their friends' reactions. Only after the customer is certain does he actually begin to pierce the skin.

Lee says that as tattoos have become hip, the number of requests for large ones has declined. These days, they only account for about 20% of his business. They've been replaced by more personalized images, such as likenesses of beloved pets, children, or lovers, or even the name of the individual and his or her significant other tattooed across a picture of some sort. People no longer have to worry about having the same tattoos as everyone else.

Some people see tattoos as fashion accessories and add new ones as fashions change. For example, low-rise slacks are now in, so many women are choosing to have something pretty tattooed onto their exposed lower backs. And with sleeveless blouses and low-cut camisoles refusing to go out of style, tattoos on the upper arm and cleavage also continue to be popular.

Everyone has their own reasons for getting a tattoo. Some like to declare their friendships by listing their friends' names. Others, such as Hsiao-chun (not her real name), tattoo their lovers' names onto different parts of their bodies.

"I throw myself completely into every relationship," explains Hsiao-chun. "I want to remember our time together even if we end up separating." But while Hsiao-chun sees her seven tattoos as representing precious memories, her boyfriends don't always agree. When one boyfriend wanted to find someone to remove her earlier tattoos, arguments erupted within the confines of a tattoo parlor. Hsiao-chun stuck to her guns and the couple split up.

Large tattoos have to be completed over the course of several days. In spite of the high cost and the pain, tattoo addicts dream of acquiring such tattoos.

Covering scars

Ah-chang, another tattoo-parlor regular, visits so often that he's become friends with the artists. He first decided he wanted a tattoo after seeing a cool one sported by a TV star. When his strict parents wouldn't permit him to get one of his own, he had to settle for paper transfers. He finally made it into a tattoo parlor after leaving home and coming north to work. He started small, then began adding bits at the edges and larger ones. These days, he's taken with the idea of a really large one.

"Tattoos are really beautiful," he says. "It's so satisfying to see pale flesh devoured by one image after another until it forms a gorgeous giant picture."

Yu-ling (not her real name) is a homemaker whose nondescript attire doesn't even hint at her tattoos. In fact, she wrestled with the question of getting a tattoo for ages before setting foot into a parlor. Knowing no one with a tattoo, she spent ages online searching and reading reviews before finally choosing a shop. Once she'd made her pick, she called to ask about prices, screwed up her courage, and shot right off to get her tattoo. She even asked the artist to do it immediately so she wouldn't have time to change her mind.

Seeing that she was rushing into it, the artist was going to urge her to forget it. Then he learned she had had breast cancer and a mastectomy. The loss of her right breast and nipple had left her feeling inadequate. She had considered reconstruction, but couldn't afford it and was uncomfortable with its potential to atrophy. When she discovered that some women had used tattooing to make their areolas pinker, she latched onto tattooing as a possible means of "reconstructing" her nipple.

The artist, who had never before received such a request, was naturally a little shocked but willing to help. It would be no easy task, however. The nipple would have to be as realistic as possible, requiring that he spend time getting the colors and shadows right, and take pains to match the one on the other side. This was far more than he had bargained for when he quoted her price of NT$2,000 for a simple round tattoo. Realizing that it would be a dead loss from a business standpoint, he chose to treat it as a good deed.

Avoiding addiction

Dr. Liu Hung-hui, head of the mental health clinic at Beitou Armed Forces Hospital, says that there's no arguing that the recent enthusiasm of performers both Taiwanese and otherwise for tattoos has reinvented the tattoo as a must-have fashion accessory. Tattoos have been freed of their negative associations and become something that young people use to win the approval of their peers. Such young people's motivations are very simple--tattoos allow them to display their own style, to memorialize something, and to connect with friends, while also symbolizing their physical autonomy.

However, young people in the identity-seeking phase of their lives who lack an appropriate outlet for their feelings of loneliness and emptiness sometimes go to extremes to release these feelings. Tattooing is one method they use. The physical pain of the tattooing process can also serve as an affirmation of their existence.

"Those who can't resolve these kinds of psychological issues through normal means are prone to becoming tattoo addicts," says Liu. He explains that many addicts compare their tattoos to see whose are the most lavish or unique. They never seem to tire of their addiction in spite of its high monetary cost, the extreme pain of the tattooing process, and the occasional necessity of a skin graft. Those who've been driven to get tattoos by their sense of inferiority may feel that displaying their tattoos demonstrates their superiority, but what they are actually doing is using them as a kind of talisman to frighten away people from outside their circle.

Men who are into tattooing usually cover every inch of their arms with images suggesting strength and power. That way, they need only roll up their sleeves to let the people around them know how tough they are.

Tattooing as an art

Lee, who has been a businessperson and even operated a streetside food stall, stumbled into tattooing through his childhood interest in doodling. His mother, a beautician, had expected tattooing to become one of the health and beauty industry's hottest services. But after training staff, buying supplies and opening a shop, she discovered that the Taiwan market was not yet interested and shut up shop.

Lee treated the temporary tattooing preferred by women as an art form in an effort to disassociate it from the machismo of traditional permanent tattooing. He developed his own techniques working with and embellishing a collection of popular Euro-American images. He never expected that these coin-sized decorative patterns would catapult him to fame in the world of temporary tattoos. Having made his name, his prices skyrocketed from NT$50 per temporary tattoo to NT$600-800.

When Lee later transitioned into the business of permanent tattoos, he set his rates at NT$2,000-6,000 per tattoo, about 40% higher than the typical tattoo artist. Nearby tattoo parlors envied his skills and reputation, and went so far as to have a local crime boss attempt to drive him away by breaking up his shop.

Lee relocated to an alley off of Hsining South Road, where he gathered himself and began hiring other professional tattoo artists. In his year and a half of offering temporary tattoos, he had noticed that more and more customers were deciding to make their tattoos permanent. An avid tracker of international fashion trends, he was sure tattoos would eventually come to be accepted by mainstream society even though most people still associated them with youthful rebellion and crime.

Many newcomers to tattooing test the waters with a small tattoo on a finger or the back of the hand. These unusual hand ornaments help accustom them to having a tattoo on their body.

Respecting the body

Though Lee's worsening eyesight has led him to put aside his needles, he has become a skillful manager of the more than 200 artists he has trained. These young artists and salesmen are largely graduates of art colleges and vocational-high-school design programs, and even include a number of foreign students.

He requires his students to report before noon and has them recite the Great Dharini mantra before sweeping up the parlor and opening up for business.

"I'll teach anyone with an interest in tattooing," says Lee. He asks only that prospective students have good eyesight, aesthetic sense, and a few basic skills such as the ability to draw a circle freehand. He doesn't care if they've served time in prison or have a criminal record, but they must adhere to his rules, including not providing services to anyone under the age of 18 and especially not sleeping with clients.

"Tattoo artists have both hands on their customers' bodies as they work to make those bodies as beautiful as they can," explains Lee. "Professional ethics demand that you control yourself during the long periods in which you have intimate contact with your customers' flesh. If you can't do that, you don't deserve to be a tattoo artist!"

Tattoo artists can earn quite a lot. Good ones makes as much as NT$200,000 per month and average ones pocket NT$40-50,000. But not just anyone can be one. Artists have to practice shrinking and enlarging circular designs by hand, as well as developing their creativity and artistic abilities. They also have to constantly hone all of their skills.

"Good students can begin working in as little as two months, but others toil for as much as two years before they're ready," says Lee. Lee distributes new designs every three months to spur the market and advance the art, drawing inspiration from popular culture's hot topics. His last design was an elf. The most recent ones are a unicorn and Lord Voldemort to accompany the current wave of Harry Potter fever.

Into the mainstream

As their clientele has become more upscale, tattoo parlors have begun migrating from dark, narrow alleys to lighter, more spacious digs. Shop owners are also investing more in equipment such as ultrasonic cleaners, dry heat sterilizers, and ultraviolet sterilizers. And Lee has developed a disposable needle to provide clients with even greater confidence that the process is hygienic.

But Lee feels these kinds of improvements aren't enough. In his view, the only way to provide clients with truly safe and sterile services is to organize a professional association and recognize tattooing as a legitimate profession. Last year, he urged Taipei's tattoo artists to form an association. Next, he intends to work towards establishing a consensus among all of Taiwan's tattoo artists.

"Right now, I'm hoping that we can develop tattoo inks that come off naturally," he says. "If we can do that, everyone could have the opportunity to use their body as a canvas and experience the pleasures of tattooing." An ardent proponent of tattooing, Lee's lifelong dream remains injecting the art into modern mainstream life.