tattooed ALTs, The life of tattooed English teachers in Japan

Three ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) share their experience living and working in Japan, a country where tattoos are generally taboo.

Many people will tell you about the social stigma that comes with tattoos in Japan. However, as you will see in this video, things are not nearly as bad as many people seem to suggest.

As a matter of fact, it's is often other foreigners who seem to pass the most judgement.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Japan
• Japanese
• tattoo
• tattoos
• ta moko
• Mauri
• JET programme
• JET Program
• ALT
• teaching
• School
• schools
• teacher
• English
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[IkaiI]

Were you tattoo'ed by Ryugen?

[lpick047]

@IkaiI Yes I was. He was a really great guy.

[undeadbread]

@lpick047 Oh totally Luc (it is Luc, right?). But it's hard to change mindsets here I find. When I told one of my JTEs that my brother has a small tattoo on his back in memory his best friend who died in a car crash, she still insisted that he was probably a bad person.. and this is from one of my fave JTEs. Mindsets are just hard to change here. It's not always a bad thing but there are a few things Japan could update, in my opinion. It'll be interesting to see what it's like in 50 years ^_^

[lpick047]

@undeadbread

To be fair to Japan, tattoos had a pretty bad rep back home 10-15 years ago too. I guess things in Japan move just a little slower. As for your JTE, that's pretty intense but I would probably get similar reactions from some of them if they knew about mine..

BTW, yes it's Luc.

[undeadbread]

I find it's very "every situation is different", even with this. In my city, even though it's not that small (half a million people), tattoos are definitely frowned upon. I have no tattoos myself but my friends have been kicked out of gyms for having tattoos in places normally hidden by clothes and I have been told that I shouldn't be friends with people with tattoos (even foreigners) because "People with tattoos are not good people". I imagine this is felt even moreso in small communities D:

[lpick047]

@undeadbread

You are right that smaller towns, especially with little or no international presence will be far more close minded than other places. However, as cultural ambassadors, we can and should tell, at least to people we are close to, that tattoos don't mean the same thing everywhere. If you look at the percentages of people with tattoos in the west, that makes a very large amount of bad people, based solely on an esthetic choice. Or even makes most Maori men bad based on their culture.

[swift12y]

Very nice video guys!!

[BRangiwai]

Japan has a history of tattoo, but at some point it became assocated with crime, and to this day that stigma remains.

[IkaiI]

@lpick047 lol yeah i thought i recognized the style; I'm getting a full back piece done up by him right now

[afithursday]

@lpick047 Yeah, I'm also looking to get a matching one with Akimi...tadaima and okaeri. haha