Wielding a cumbersome tattoo gun with his small hands swamped in surgical gloves, nine-year-old Napat Mitmakorn expertly inks the pattern of a fanged serpent on a man’s upper thigh.
“I want to be a tattoo artist and open my own tattoo parlor,” he said at his booth at a Bangkok tattoo expo, where fascinated attendees paused to film his work. “I like art so I like to tattoo.”
Tattooing is a centuries-old tradition in Thailand, where tattoo parlors are omnipresent and offer designs ranging from the ancient and spiritual to the modern and profane.
Photo: AFP
Napat’s father, Nattawut Sangtong, said he introduced his son — who goes by the nickname “Knight” — to the craft of tattooing to avoid the pitfalls of contemporary childhood.
“I just wanted to keep him away from his phone, because he was addicted to gaming and had a short attention span,” said the 38-year-old, also an amateur tattooist, who works at a block printing factory.
The father-son duo together learned from TikTok tutorials and practiced on paper before graduating to artificial leather simulating human skin, and then the real thing.
Photo: AFP
Knight said he swiftly picked up the skills, because art is his favorite school subject.
Recognizing his son’s talent, Nattawut now coaches him in two-hour sessions three days a week.
“It’s not just tattooing, it’s like meditation,” Nattawut said.
The pair run a TikTok channel together — “The Tattoo Artist with Milk Teeth” — where they livestream Knight’s sessions and sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of viewers with a single clip.
His Saturday session at the Thailand Tattoo Expo was his public debut, as he tattooed his uncle for a second time — marking him with a 20cm mythical Naga serpent.
Unfazed by the techno music blaring from massive speakers, Knight predicts the creature from Hindu and Thai folklore would take 12 hours to complete.
For now, his father insists he only works on family and friends — opening up to public clients would require more rigorous hygiene training.
However, Naruebet Chonlatachaisit, Knight’s uncle, is relaxed as the tattoo takes shape on his left leg.
“I trust him, and I think he’ll only improve,” he said.
Knight was one of nearly 200 artists at the Thailand Tattoo Expo — but drew outsized attention among the crowds of thousands of visitors this weekend.
Office worker Napat Muangsawang stopped by the boy’s booth to admire his meticulous artistry.
“It’s quite amazing. Tattooing isn’t easy,” he said. “It’s not like drawing on a paper where you can just erase it.”
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
RSS