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.”
When the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces 50 years ago this week, it prompted a mass exodus of some 2 million people — hundreds of thousands fleeing perilously on small boats across open water to escape the communist regime. Many ultimately settled in Southern California’s Orange County in an area now known as “Little Saigon,” not far from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the first refugees were airlifted upon reaching the US. The diaspora now also has significant populations in Virginia, Texas and Washington state, as well as in countries including France and Australia.
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
Dull functional structures dominate Taiwan’s cityscapes. But that’s slowly changing, thanks to talented architects and patrons with deep pockets. Since the start of the 21st century, the country has gained several alluring landmark buildings, including the two described below. NUNG CHAN MONASTERY Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山, DDM) is one of Taiwan’s most prominent religious organizations. Under the leadership of Buddhist Master Sheng Yen (聖嚴), who died in 2009, it developed into an international Buddhist foundation active in the spiritual, cultural and educational spheres. Since 2005, DDM’s principal base has been its sprawling hillside complex in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山). But
RSS