Moeko Heshiki is no ordinary tattoo artist: she is one of the few people keeping the once-banned tradition of hajichi body art alive for the indigenous Ryukyu people of Japan’s Okinawa region. The traditionally hand-poked markings were once common on women of the Ryukyu, who lived throughout the southern islands of what is now Japan.
The monochrome patterns, ranging from delicate arrow-like symbols to arrays of large dots, marked important moments in a woman’s life and, in some cases, were believed to ensure passage to heaven.
When Japan annexed the Okinawa island chain in 1879, however, a process of forced assimilation set the hajichi tradition on the path to extinction.
Photo: AFP
In mainland Japan, tattoos were associated with illegal behavior, because criminals were sometimes tattooed by authorities to mark them out.
“Those with hajichi were fined and discriminated against,” 30-year-old Heshiki said in Naha, Okinawa’s main city. “(The body art) was degraded as tattoos, rather than understood as hajichi.”
A ban on the markings was lifted after World War II, but the practice did not resume, and as women with hajichi passed away, the culture seemed destined to die out.
Photo: AFP
Heshiki, born to a father from Okinawa and a mother from Japan’s main island Honshu, stumbled across hajichi while researching possible tattoos.
“I was dying to have them on me,” she said. After a tattooist specializing in tribal work inked her, she felt “more connected to myself, or to Okinawa.”
“I felt I had finally become my true self.”
She wears hajichi shaped like arrows on the tops of all her fingers, dots and geometric patterns on the backs of her hands and larger versions around her wrists.
Today, she works as a “hajicha,” reproducing the traditional designs on clients who connect with her through Instagram.
While tattoos are still often frowned upon in Japanese society, younger generations are increasingly open to body art.
But Heshiki thinks hajichi should not become just another fad.
She offers traditional patterns to those with roots in Okinawa and takes time to discuss the markings and meanings with clients beforehand, researching designs in books about the art. Hajichi was traditionally applied with a bamboo stick and ink made from charcoal and the Okinawan liquor awamori. Heshiki hand pokes the designs, but with regular needles and ink.
One of the best-known documenters of hajichi is Hiroaki Yamashiro, who photographed dozens of elderly women with the body art from 1970 onwards.
A native of Okinawa’s Miyakojima, the 73-year-old began the project almost by accident as a student, when he spotted an elderly lady as he scouted for subjects.
“She had hajichi, and a very graceful look,” he said.
He photographed around 30 women with hajichi until 1990, including a 107-year-old who still remembered the pain of having the markings done.
“She had to put her swollen hands in a bucket of soybean pulp left over from making tofu to cool them.”
Yamashiro welcomes the revival of hajichi but believes it should not be watered down to a mere fashion statement.
“This is a culture only practiced by Ryukyu women, it’s something completely different from tattoos.”
He hopes younger generations will be “even more proud” of being Okinawan, and “retain the Okinawan culture, way of thinking and identity.”
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ!). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing