Watch the TED-Ed above for more intriguing tattoo facts.
It only takes 5 minutes, and after watch this, you will be fascinated with tattoo.
But I would like to write about video briefly for saving your 5 mins!
Ancient Tattooed Aryan Mummies of Asia
Tattooed mummies from around the
world attest to the universality of body modification across the millennium, and
to the fact that you really were stuck with it forever if your civilization never got around to inventing laser
removal.
<the right man : A mummy from the Chinchorroo >
A mummy from the Chinchorro
culture in pre-Incan Peru has a mustache tattooed on his upper lip.
< The left man : Ötzi mummified iceman of the Alps. >
Ötzi, mummified iceman of the
Alps, has patterned charcoal tats along his spine, behind his knee and
around his ankles, which might be from an early sort of acupuncture.
The mummy of Amunet, a priestess in
Middle Kingdom Egypt, features tattoos thought to symbolize sexuality and fertility.
Do you have any idea why do we English speakers call them all tattoos?
The word is an anglophonic
modification of "tatao," a Polynesian word used in Tahiti, where
English captain James Cook landed in 1769 and encountered heavily tattooed men
and women. And people started to use the word "tattoo" instead of "scarring," "painting," and
"staining," and sparked a craze in Victorian English high society.
<Victorian lady who got tattoo>
The funny thing is, in the Victorian society, people looked down their noses at tattoos but lots of people had them in secret.
The western people usually got tattoos before meeting the Samoans and Maori of the South Pacific. Crusaders got the Jerusalem Cross
so if they died in battle, they'd get a Christian burial.
There's also a long tradition of people being tattooed unwillingly. Most infamously, the Nazis tattooed numbers on the chest or arms of Jews and other prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to identify stripped corpses.
And those criminals and outcasts
of Japan, where tattooing was eventually outlawed from the mid-19th century to just
after World War II, added decoration to their penal tattoos, with designs
borrowed from woodblock prints, popular literature and mythical spiritual
iconography. Yakuza gangs viewed their outsider tattoos as signs of lifelong
loyalty and courage.After all, they lasted forever and it really hurt to get
them.
For the Maori, those tattoos were
an accepted mainstream tradition. If you shied away from the
excruciating chiseling in of your moko design, your unfinished tattoo marked your cowardice.
But with the incredibly broad
history of tattoos giving you so many options, what are you going to get? This is a bold-lined expression
of who you are, or you want to appear to be.
"Everyone is marked, thus in different
parts of his body, according maybe to his humor or different circumstances of
his life." Maybe your particular humor and
circumstances suggest getting a symbol of
cultural heritage, a sign of spirituality, sexual energy, or good old-fashioned avant-garde defiance.
A reminder of a great
accomplishment, or of how you think it would look cool if Hulk Hogan rode a
Rhino. It's your expression, your body, so
it's your call.
Now I'm going to introduce my only one tattoo. Technically, this is not "Willow tree", --it might be willup tree -- but I and my friends call this "little willow with warm heart". When I was in Calgary in Canada, I got this little one on my ankle. At the first time, there's no reason to decide to get tattoo. One of my best Canadian friend, Randi, showed this little design of willow tree and told me, "Willow, this is just so you." so I decided. It was a little bit painful at the first time, my friends Randi and Jenn hold my hands to make me relax. After 15 minutes, finally I got the first and only one little willow tree on my ankle. Now I'm in Korea. Whenever I saw my little willow, I remember my short, but precious period in my life, Calgary life. At that time, I had my own motto "One more shoveling!", It means never give up and do my best in everything. It always fillips my memory in Calgary and makes me try to do best from little things like assignment. I've always believed in living life to the full and earnestly through this little willow tree. This willow tree is the symbol of my life and just myself.