I have never payed attention to tattoos for the simple reason that it
wasn't very well seen in Belgium or in Germany and a tattooed person was
considered as rather vulgar.
So I was quiet surprised the first
time I went to Egypt to see lots of British tourists more or less
tattooed. It was the same for women and men, and they weren't the
youngest once. They were all people like us, retired and stemming from
the 60th/70th. When I asked why they all had these tattooes I have been
told that it was very in fashion at hippie times end 60th and in the
70th in the UK and it was considered as very "in" ! I knew immediately
who was British, because of the tattoos, no other tourists had them and
... they all regretted !
What probably looked nice when you are
20 doesn't have the same effect when you are in your 60th or 70th, put
on some weight and lost your hair. Once a beautiful fresh little rose on
an arm now looks rather faded, a snake has more wrinkles as usual and
the once probably big and strong man who has a "I love mom" tattoo on his
shrunk muscles looks rather ridiculous.
Some women were a
little upset because their husbands still had a heart with an arrow
somewhere on their body, with a tattoo "Mary forever" but his wife's name
was "Sue". You never know if it's forever !
Amongst my friends
only one has a little rose tattooed on her shoulder, but even that, now looks rather ridiculous and she tries to hide it.
One
thing is sure, when you are 20 you never think how you would look like
at 80 ! and it is very hard to get rid of these "youth" memories.
Originally tattoos hadn't been a fashion and exists since the New Stone Age beginning about 9500 BC they were used to mark the tribes or communities, to which people belonged to.
Today, people choose to
be tattooed for cosmetic, sentimental/memorial, religious, and magical
reasons, and to symbolize their belonging to or identification with
particular groups, especially criminal gangs.
When I get into my third (or forth) puberty, maybe I will get a tattoo too, I only don't know yet what ?
What about that ?
I don't like visible tattoos, so I reluctantly started reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz for the first time. Of course this is a totally different topic, but your timing was spot on.
ReplyDelete