Secret Ink in South Korea

 One of the recent documentaries I watched during the night shift, Secret Ink talks about the stigma on tattoos in South Korea.

 

Produced by the BBC, it follows Anh Lina, a tattoo artist, and her experiences doing her work.

 

 

Being called names online, and not of the kind sort, to having hundreds of dick pics send to her, she is seen as both a pariah as a forbidden sex symbol.  They are seen as being unfit for being a mother, social rejects, sluts and more just because they produce body-art, and this led to the creation of the 4B movement.  

In South Korea, only licensed medical professionals can practice tattooing legally, as the government has classified it as a medical procedure, and thus creating a robust underground industry.  They suffer discrimination and harassement as they don't have any form of legal protection, seeing they are in essence doing criminal acts.  

And yet, slowly, things are starting to change a little for the better, with medical practioners even agreeing at times that tattoos can be done by artists instead of doctors, as they only need a short course about sterilization and such.  In the meantime, many talented artists have moved abroad, but just as many keep doing the thing they love at home.

 

A truly intresting documentary (it can be found on YouTube btw) and it might even look unbelievable to our western society where the artform is getting more and more common...