Asian Tattoo Art: a source of Empowerment or a source of Embarrassment?

For the last six months, I have considered getting a tattoo. Ever since I was young kid, I’ve enjoyed buying temporary tattoos from vending machines and covering my body with images of scorpions, cobras, and barbwire. Tattoos symbolize a lot of different things for me: rebelliousness, self-expression, permanence, empowerment, legitimacy, and beauty. During my numerous visits to tattoo parlors and hours on the web searching for that perfect design, I have often thought of getting a tattoo that represents my Japanese heritage, like a Kanji symbol for my middle name. Yet, whenever I thought of following through with it, I couldn’t help but compare myself to the numerous Asian symbols I have seen over the years on non-Asians. Would my friends see the symbol on my back and put me in the same group as the hipsters and gangsters alike who get an Asian symbol for “good luck” or “power?”

I have a friend from high school who prides himself on his “multicultural collection” of tattoos. He has an American Indian symbol of an eagle, a Celtic knot, and a Chinese symbol for “strength.” Whenever I see his tattoos, they scream imperialism, racism, extotification, and exploitation, yet could the same symbol for me be a source of empowerment and legitimacy? With the majority of people getting Asian tattoos being white and black, the popularity of Asian tattoo art could also easily be viewed as a success of integrating Asian culture into the mainstream. Is it less offensive for a non-Asian to get a Kanji character if he venerates the symbol by knowing its meaning and history? Another interesting phenomenon which has taken place is the mistranslation (both intentional and accidental) of Asian characters: “gas” instead of “spirit” or “blood and intestines” instead of “blood and guts.” Poorly drawn and even upside down characters are another regular occurrence. For all of its complexities, Asian tattoo art serves as a good lens for examining production and abuse of Asian American popular culture.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194732,00.html

http://www.imdiversity.com/Villages/Asian/arts_culture_media/pc_asian_tattoos_0604.asp

Broken Blossoms

Although the portrayal of Cheng in Broken Blossoms can be seen as positive, it carries assumptions about racial identity and gender that are in fact very negative; the film ultimately suggests that Asians can't cope with modernity and that their ways are backward.

Cheng is portrayed as an effeminate man, thus equating Asianness with femininity. He looks frail and soft, in stark contrast to the rough manliness of Battling Burrows. He always stands in a way that takes up minimal space, and never asserts himself in his surroundings by taking up space--an attribute associated with masculinity.

Furthermore, he walks hunched over and with a limp--a portrayal of the physical weakness of the Asian. His frailness has more in common with Lucy than with any of the other men, and they share a bond because of this element of physical weakness.

Cheng's mission is to spread Buddhism to the West, but the treatment of his journey carries imperialistic and conquistadorian overtones. While one could read the portrayal of Buddhism as peaceful and positive, the film in actuality seems to suggest that Buddhism is idealistic and backward. The modern world, represented by the West, is rough and harsh. Once Cheng encounters the "real world" of the modern West, he's forced to take violence--his ultimate shooting of Battler represents not only his defeat of this enemy, but also the defeat of his ideals. His peaceful Buddhist ways prove to be unworkable once he leaves the Edenic East, and ultimately he loses the battle to keep his own values alive.

His missionary role is ironic, since in the end he is the one who becomes converted. I saw a parallel between this process and the colonization of the New World. Europeans, upon discovering Native Americans, found their peaceful, communitarian, spiritual ways to be backward and untenable for the modern world as defined by Europe. In the same way, Cheng finds that his own ways of peace are unworkable. If the blossom represents idyllic peace, Cheng himself is the broken blossom--his old conception of the world is shattered, but unfortunately he is a weak, effeminate Asian man who can't really make it in the real, modern world. Thus, even though he shoots Battler, he's left with a dead girl and a broken spirit. His own realization of his condition causes his suicide.