the angry saga of my parents reaction to my tattoo

In my second week on a tropical island far from home alone, I decided to get a tattoo and called my parents.

[ how the conversation went ]

“Can i get a tattoo?”

“No”

“please?”

“Why must you ruin the body that we gave you.”

“It’s my body, is it not?”

“No, because we made it for you”

“ Well, you can’t really stop me right now… so i’m going to get one”

Tldr: they were not happy at all

But I got my tattoos for sentimental reasons. My first one was dedicated to my paternal grandparents and my second for my maternal grandma, two weeks after.

I think that growing up in Singapore, although tattoos are slowly becoming normalised, it is still something that is incredibly frowned upon by our close-minded Asian society. But moving out to Koh Tao, I found it harder to find someone without tattoos than someone with one.

Everyone’s sense of normal is different. In Singapore, its frowned upon and is treated as a taboo subject. But in other places, it’s a perfectly normal thing, that is even seen as cool or a form of art or personal expression. Don’t let someone elses sense of normal pressure you into conforming to theirs. A sense of normalcy or what is taboo is such a social construct.

#selfcare #selfimprovement #tattoodesign #tattoo #selfimprovement #selfdevelopment #selflove #selflovejourney