Chinese Tattoo Stories I

Chinese Robin-hoods and Tattoos - Part I The Chinese classical novel "Shui Hu Zhuan" tells the stories about Chinese Robbin-hood sometime about 600 hundred years ago. In this story, there are 36 main characters and all were Chinese Kung Fu masters. They were rioters fighting against the Chinese emperor of Song Dynasty but were viewed as heroes by most local civilians. In the Chinese song dynasty, when a person was found guilty of a severe crime, there would be a tattoo placed on his forehead, and a criminal offender would be sent to a jail located in remote areas, which was far away from his home. This is called "Chong Jun (充军)", which means "banish". The tattoo on the person' face would permanently mark him as a criminal. If two tattoos appeared on his face, it means this person had been jailed twice. The two-pronged punishment is called "Ci Pei" (刺配), which means exile. In case of prisoners' escaping on their way to the jails in the remote areas, some of their faces would even be punctured with symbol tattoos of the jail' s name, which indicated to everyone who saw him that he is a serious criminal offender.

Chinese Robin-hoods and Tattoos - Part II In the novel of "Shui Hu Zhuan", many of these characters were imprisoned several times. So inevitably, all had the tattoos on their faces. Some had their faces punctured with tattoos such as "发配幽州", which means "exile to Youzhou Prison". However, apart from those criminal tattoos some characters in the book still liked having tattoos on their body to express their personality or anger with the government. One man called Shi Jin tattooed 9 lines of dragons on his body and therefore given a nickname: "nine lines of dragons". Another man called Yanqin was a master of wrestling and he had the flower tattoos all over his body. So it seems that from that time, tattoo became more and more acceptable to Chinese people and society. The turning point in Chinese tattoo history starts from a Chinese historic story called "Yue Mu Ci Zi" ...... Continue Reading

Home | Chinese Tattoo Designs | Tattooing Technique | Tattoo Museum | Chinese Tattoos & Celebrities | Tattoo Gallery | Chinese Character Tattoos | Hot Chinese Symbols | Tattoo Story - II | Chinese Names & Celebrities |
Chinese Names Secrets | Chinese Name Translation | Chinese Symbol History |
Link To Us | Ancient Chinese Writings |
Chinese Words Secrets I | Chinese Words Secrets II | Chinese Characters | Traditional Chinese Characters |
Simplified Chinese Characters | Chinese Faith Love |
Chinese New Year | Chinese Double Happiness | Chinese Peace Symbol |
Kanji Symbols | Chinese Letters | Site Map |
Contact Us | About Us | Privacy | The Blog |

Copyright © 2006-7 www.Chinese-Tattoos-Symbols.com. All Rights Reserved.   Chinese-Tattoos & Chinese-Symbols Resource Center     Chinese-Tattoo Designs & Chinese-Symbols Translation