How Female Tattoo Artists Under 30 Are Making Millions a Year in Taiwan

This article is by Hedy Chiu, translated by Jack C. and edited by Sharon Tseng. Originally published by CommonWealth Magazine. Used with permission.

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“Your left shoulder is two centimeters higher than the right,” says Li-ssu Liao (廖力司) as her hands straightened the reporter’s shoulders. Her eyes rove over the body like a finely-tuned radar. “That’s right, exactly two centimeters. Any more and you run the risk of scoliosis, according to doctors.”

Her tone is careful, precise, even stolid. She walks as quietly as a cat. Were it not for the tattoos covering her back, you’d be forgiven for thinking Liao was some type of physical or psychological therapist.

28-year-old Liao graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts. During her apprenticeship, she survived on a monthly salary of only ten thousand Taiwan dollars. Four years after starting her own business with friends, she has an annual salary of over a million dollars. (Photo by Ming-Tang Huang/CW)

She doesn’t look like a conventional tattooist, and she doesn’t run a conventional tattoo shop. Besides the card-sized sticker on the front door which simply says “TATTOO,” the place looks more like a hipster’s favorite coffee shop.

The 90-square-meter workshop basks in natural light. The spotless floors are Japanese in style: no shoes allowed. Stuffed toys cover light-hued wooden furniture: Mike from Monsters, Inc., the Little Mermaid. There’s also a cabinet stocked with wine.

In less than fifteen minutes, Liao had finished a piece of art, and was carefully explaining to the customer about the next two weeks of “post-surgery” recovery. She walks the customer to the door herself; they add each other on the chat app LINE so she could monitor the customer’s “post-surgery” recovery. She doesn’t hand it off to an assistant, because she holds herself accountable for her works of art.

Female Tattooists Break the Mold and Lead the Trend

The stringent operating procedure and professional service seem straight out of a cosmetic clinic. The interior is brightly-lit and comfortable, unlike the stereotypical image of tattoo parlors being dim holes filled with cigarettes, alcohol, testosterone, and a whiff of crime.

The tattoo culture has gone through a revamp in recent years. Its aficionados have changed from the blue-collar workers of the past to college students, hipsters, working women, and other white-collar office workers. Their age ranges from 25 to 35, and 97% of them are women.

Tattoo artist Liao is only 28 herself. She graduated from the Department of Painting and Calligraphy Arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts. At 20, she became an apprentice in a tattoo shop. Two years later, she was a full-fledged tattoo artist. She cofounded her tattoo shop with friends when she was 24. Their monthly revenue is as much as three or four hundred thousand Taiwan dollars; their annual revenue is easily over a million.

Liao’s first tattoo is in remembrance of her deceased grandmother. (Photo by Ming-Tang Huang/CW)

Tattoos are costly, but still very popular with today’s youth. A customer once got a giant tattoo that covered the entire back. It took a year to complete and cost 65 thousand dollars. Even a small tattoo stencil can be expensive.

The currently trendy minimalistic tattoo, which may look like a few simple lines, can cost between three and five thousand dollars. The portrait of a beloved pet costs from eight to ten thousand. Bird-and-flower painting tattoos, which are extremely popular with young girls, have a minimal price of six thousand dollars.

“It’s easy to sell to girls!” Laughs Tzu-ying Wu (吳姿穎), a 26-year-old tattooist. “Girls know how to take care of themselves. They are willing to splurge on a stick of lipstick, whereas men can spend half a day debating whether or not they should get a tiny tattoo.”

Wu does tattoos during the day, draws at night, and manages her own fan page in her spare time. Every new design she publishes is instantaneously bought by eager fans.

“It’s like they’re fighting over concert tickets.” Wu even preannounces the “bidding time” on her fan page. Every Sunday, the first fan to message her at ten in the evening gets to buy the latest tattoo she designed.

There’s a steadfast principle driving this bidding frenzy. Wu never tattoos the same design more than once. “Traditional tattooists draw the same cross or pair of wings on hundred of people. Modern customers want a design that’s unique in all the world.”

“I’m fully booked for the next two months. Some fans who weren’t fast enough to get a unique tattoo design have made reservations for the end of the year.” Wu’s first customer had hardly gotten out of the chair before the next one’s walking in the door. She works on six to seven customers a day. It’s so much work that the ligaments in her fingers are inflamed, but she still has to draw up new designs at home in the evening.

Becoming a tattooist was not her first career choice. She graduated from the Department of Industrial Design at the Chaoyang University of Technology. She worked for a while in a fashion design company and made less than thirty thousand dollars a month, although it felt like she had to do everything herself.

She did upstream design and editing and downstream marketing and filming, she managed suppliers and provided customer service. The fashion designers had to take care of everything.

Wu’s tattoo designs are as popular as concert tickets. (Photo by Justin Wu/CW)

Wu turned her back on conventional fashion design. She used her knowledge of design and drawing skill to teach herself how to make tattoos. Within two years, she became the owner of her own 120-square-meter tattoo shop.

These female tattooists are fascinated with tattoos not only because of the artistic presentation, but also the life story behind each design. Once, a girl asked Wu to tattoo four giant words: “losing speed and falling” (失速墜落) on her chest in bright red ink that looked like fresh blood.

“Those were words they found in a note her older sister wrote before she died,” Wu recounts quietly. “All her tattoos had something to do with her big sister, she said she wanted to live with the memory forever.”

Another married couple came to Wu because they wanted a tattoo which showed how they felt the first time they saw their baby’s electrocardiogram. The wife cried as she got her tattoo; this was her third pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to keep the previous two.

A simple pattern on the couple’s arms sealed their commitment to this baby, and to each other. The wife smiled contentedly after her tattoo was complete: “I’m sure this one will live.”

In truth, the tattoo culture has evolved from the grandiose patterns popular in the past to more personalized mementos. “Most people are coming to you with personal stories, it’s just whether or not they divulge everything,” says Yu-nung Chou (周于穠), a veteran tattoo artist who’s been in the industry for six years.

She looks back on her first year of apprenticeship, when she was just seventeen. Back then, all you needed to learn were the “standard” patterns: black scorpions, roses, crosses, all that good stuff.

A few years ago, the popular patterns were cartoon characters, geometric shapes, or fantastical sketches in the style of color pencils. More recently, watercolors, ink splotches, and mini tattoos favored by hipsters became all the rage.

But more and more people get tattoos as a way of remembering something important in their lives. These “memento” tattoos are commonly represented through personal portraits or other images that reflect deep-seated convictions.

“I want a tattoo of a chin,” 22-year-old I-han (not her real name) remained expressionless throughout the process. Her eyes remained fixed on the black ink dripping down the needle, as if each jab of the point punctured the deepest part of her soul.

Six months ago, I-han nearly lost her life in an automobile accident. She suffered grievous injuries on the left side of her body. Her face was almost completely destroyed. Her jaw was so damaged she could not eat, and she had to survive on liquid food for four months. It took multiple surgeries to fix her jaw enough that she could talk again.

A girl whose chin was disfigured in a car crash tattooed her ideal self on her arm. (Photo by Justin Wu/CW)

“The tattoo did not hurt at all. What really hurt was looking into a mirror and seeing a monster with a lopsided face,” I-han recounts the six months after the accident as she softly strokes the newly completed tattoo.

The ink traces the image of a girl gracefully propping up her chin, confident in her own beauty. “That’s the chin I want. I did not have the confidence to let people see my face before, I felt like they were all staring at my crooked chin.”

Each Tattoo is a Story Collected by a Therapist of Memories

In the face of all these different customers, the tattoo artist feels like a therapist of the soul. The customers speak of their lives; the tattooists listen. “A tattoo is much more than a picture, it’s something very spiritual,” says Wu.

She listens to I-han’s story quietly, then turns all her suffering and courage into a simple curving line. The needle punctures the flesh in a rhythmic pattern. It releases all that cannot be said from under the skin.

“Few customers ask for tattoos on exposed parts of their body. Ninety percent ask for tattoos that are smaller than a business card. They are not here for the ink. They want to remember something or someone that’s important to them,” says Chou. Though only 23 years of age, she behaves with a prudent gravity that belies her age.

This reporter witnessed Chou spend ninety minutes discussing patterns with a male college student who came in for a tattoo. She used something like a tattoo sticker to help him “preview” the effect. They washed and reapplied the pattern seven times before every angle, every detail on the skin was satisfactory to them both. Then she got to work.

“It’s my job to save my customers from rash decisions. A tattoo is for life. Laser tattoo removal or covering an old tattoo with a new one costs twice the original time and money.” Because of her naturally cautious instinct, it’s not easy to become Chou’s customer.

For instance, she steadfastly refuses to do tattoos for lovebirds. “I don’t want their tattoos to become lifelong seals of pain if they break up.” The only customer to ever break her “commandment” was a man who wanted a portrait of his dead girlfriend. “All her photos and belongings had been burned. At least this tattoo will help the world remember she existed.”

Chou met this customer again at an expo some years later. “He seemed like a brand-new person, like he found the strength to go on living.”

Chou refuses to tattoo lovebirds. (Photo by Hedy Chiu/CW)

In a way, tattooists understand why customers use tattoos to remember pain better than anyone. Oftentimes, they themselves are marked in the same way.

“My own first tattoo was in remembrance of my deceased grandmother. I believe the pain of getting a tattoo is something that stays with you forever.” Liao was raised by her grandmother, but she was not there to say goodbye when her grandmother passed away.

Unable to release her pent-up anguish, she walked into a tattoo shop at random. Unexpectedly, the tattoo master caught a glimpse of some promotional posters she was carrying around and became impressed by her exquisite artwork. She was invited to stay on as an apprentice.

This unexpected stroke of “luck” had its twists and turns. The work was nine hours a day, after which she had to wine and dine customers until the middle of the night. The pay was little more than ten thousand dollars.

“My family would not speak with me for years.” When she started her own business, Liao swore to herself, “I will never let my apprentices suffer like I did.”

Now that she is boss, she willingly sacrifices friendship and support from others in the same line of work to take care of apprentices as if they were her children. She refuses to entertain anyone after business hours. “I mentioned I wanted Doritos, and the next day ‘mom’ had ordered a few cartons,” says apprentice Ying-chun (not her real name), who affectionately calls Liao “mother.”

“It’s difficult to stay true to what you love to do,” Liao says. She speaks of a regular customer who’s always picking up stray dogs too far gone for even animal shelters to try to save. Not every dog makes it, and so for every dog he fails to rescue, he tattoos the shape of a paw on his body. He’s had six paws tattooed in the last two to three years. “Every time he visits, I know another dog has died, and so I never ask. The tattooing procedure is a healing process in its own way.”

Carrying wounds that will never heal, these tattooists trace life’s bravery and regret in ink until they leave a permanent, indelible mark. “I am only doing what I love,” they repeat as if in one voice. Their words are simple, because the memories of tragedy and prejudice are too burdensome to give voice to.

In a city that frowns upon tattoo culture, they give their all to find shelter from the storm, and they extend this refuge to others who are struggling to protect what is widely misunderstood. For example, though 96% of allergens that trouble Liao are cat hair, she stubbornly keeps three cats as pets, even if she must visit the hospital every year to surgically remove polyps from the alae of her nose so she can breathe normally.

“Perhaps we are all too busy and forgetful. I worry we will forget the only warmth left in our lives. Maybe that’s why we try to hold onto something that belongs to us, to turn a unique, cherished memory into eternity,” Wu hypothesizes.

These women are transforming the tattoo industry, and they’re reeducating the public about what tattoos mean. They’ve carved out a corner of this city for their passion. They are therapists of the soul who listen with the heart and record what should never be forgotten with ink and needle.