Part 2

Courtney: But it's also interesting in other cultures as well; for example, in China, you have specialists who are valued as quite special people in society, and these people are trained-very professional in their training-and they use very fine techniques and approaches to tattooing people, and many people will pay thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in order to get one of these professionally-done tattoos. Michael: It's still a specialized art form for the artists. I mean, he's still doing various different tattoos a day, however many he does, or she does. And it's quite a responsibility too, I mean, you're marking somebody's body permanently, I mean, apart from laser surgery and whatnot. But for all intents and purposes, this is going to be a relatively permanent mark you're putting on somebody. If you botch the job, if you're drunk, if you're screwed on heroin, you're probably not going to have the best product. Courtney: No, definitely not.

Michael: The person might get angry.

Courtney: Definitely not, if you're taking drugs, probably, right? Interesting, yes. People have also started to tattoo their faces, and a lot of different parts of their body that you wouldn't think people would normally tattoo. I think a lot of this is cultural-

Michael: Indoctrination?

Courtney: Indoctrination, yes, good word. Thank you. Cultural indoctrination that results in people taking the ideas of other cultures; for example, like the Maori culture of New Zealand, and introducing it to their own culture and using it as some sort of spiritual symbolism. For example, in the United States of America, there are gangs-well, there are some gangs or some people-who will have teardrops tattooed under their eyes, and this symbolizes how many people they have murdered.

Michael: Or no, I think that just means being in jail. Having been a convict.

Courtney: Perhaps that's the case, I heard- Michael: It could be various things, yeah.

Courtney: It could be various things.

Michael: One symbol could have a lot of meanings.

Courtney: That's right. Somebody told me that the teardrop-the teardrop under the eye symbolizes the murdering of somebody.

Michael: Yeah. Well, there's definitely, I think, a travel aspect to the tattoos, like they come from tribes, from a tribal community, and now they're being adopted, I think, in these urban centers, you know, the urban tribe. Courtney: Right.

Michael: Has taken these, assimilated the various symbols and practices, and then probably within each, there's little sub-clans, you know, from the guys with the teardrops to the people with the Chinese letters, the people with the Sanskrit letters, to the people with the naked women on their arms and the anchors. For this whole tribal culture of tattooing, there must be many clans.

Courtney: Many subcultures. Subcultures, different clans, right. Often tattoos of sailors and hearts and naked women are associated with maybe blue-collar people, sailors. Often Sanskrit-

Michael: Yeah, the spiritual people might put an "Om" sign on their arm or something. Courtney: Right, interesting. Okay, well, thanks a lot for talking about tattoos.