Well, yellow is actually only good (sorry, kosher) if you’re in the armed forces. And then it better be a shade of yellow from your own culture, that you understand the meaning of, because, because, because…
Just admit it! I’m right! About everything!
Well, in that case, go for it! 
I believe Joey P (and my wife) when they say they have tattoos only for themselves and for no one else.
I can’t speak for Joey P, but I can say something about my wife. She has a thing for what I might call physical reminders. Photos, souvenirs, scrapbooks, and so on. Anything she can do to preserve an experience, to have a way to bring the experience back to her in the future, she’s into that. And tattoos are part of this for her. She doesn’t have her tattoos in order to express something to other people. Rather, she has them as the most intimate, indelable way to ensure that certain things she has loved, and certain experiences she has gone through, remain with her forever.
I personally do not understand this. My mind just doesn’t work this way. I can not think of a symbol as being so concrete and real as she does. To me the separation between symbol and thig-symbolized is pretty wide.* For her it’s not so wide. I can’t think like this, but I recognize that many can and do.
So I may think we have way to many photos around the house (it gets cluttered around here) but I know this is how my wife remembers. And the tattoos are part of that. They’re not for me or for anyone else–they’re for her, and only her.
-FrL-
*I can find symbols deeply significant, but they present themselves to me as tools for thinking about other things. For my wife, it’s different–they present themselves to her as the thing they symbolize. That’s a little more stark than the actual situation–it’s more fuzzy than I describe it–but the basic idea is right.
How in the world does having a small tattoo on my ankle equal “posing as one”. How freaking’ silly. I have red hair and blue eyes so the idea of me even thinking about “posing” as Native American is laughable. Did you miss the part where I wrote that the tattoo was given to me by someone who had the right to give it? Or does that mess up your little snark-fest?
No suspicion about it. Check out poorly thought out tattoos on Hanzi Smatter.
FWIW, I once saw a guy (here in BG) with the word FUCK tattooed in big letters on his arm. Classy. (Of course, I know at least one American who’s got an equally classy tattoo in Bulgarian.)
I can’t get a tattoo for religious reasons.
I’m a member of the Church of Don’t Be a Trend-Sucking Moron.
Yes, I too diligently avoid all trends. I think this makes me cool and independent. For example, I really want to drive a hybrid car. But I don’t, 'cause it’s trendy. No way I’m gonna let some trend control my life. I’m way too independent.
How long has getting a tattoo been a “trend”? I got my first one 17 years ago, so I need to find out if I’m “trend-sucking” or not.
I think it could definitely be considered a trend…becoming more and more popular over the last 20 years or so. Piercing, too…when I was in high school, multiple ear piercings were very popular. For the most part, people hadn’t started piercing other body parts, but I think that and tattoos are all part of the same trend. There are trends that are fads, which burn out quickly, but a trend doesn’t have to be defined that way.
No, I think that quotation suggests exactly the opposite. Were the ancient gentleman who came up with the original quote alive and present, he would say exactly the same–who are the Romans (or anyone) to decide what is “best” in terms of taste? That’s kind of the point. Did you actually read the whole post?
Regardless of my or anyone’s feelings on the subject, it always amuses me when people try to portray tattooing as some sort of flash-in-the-pan, since tattoos are a fad like wheel-thrown pottery, numerals, and bronze are fads.
Oh, well, sure, it’s been around since the dawn of time…but not necessarily in modern western culture!
I’d say wearing hand-thonged smoke-cured leather outfits and using only flint implements would be pretty faddish these days, and those cultural traits are even older. “Paleolithic Punk”? 
I don’t think anything’s been around since the dawn of time in modern western culture. Not even iPods.
Unless I walk around in traditional japanese dress, or you know i live in a house entirely filled with japnoica, how the hell are you to know whether or not I am a japonica buff? Or even how much of a buff I happen to be?
Other than the fact that I can actually perform the entire basic tea ceremony correctly, appreciate japanese art and culture to the extend of collecting antiquities and wood block prints, and have an appreciation of the food including the ability to cook much of it [never was interested in getting the knife and handwork down to properly make sashimi and the different sushi forms that is] and know some basic courtesies in the language…
My tattoo is a self designed more or less solar flare abstract in rainbow colors that is pretty abstract. I dont jhave a kanji anywhere inked on my skin.
I think I would qualify as an afficianado of japonica…although I am also an afficianado of elizabethan clothing to the point of being able to tailor it by hand … medieval and renaissance european and persian cooking, and I play a killer game of World of Warcraft, as well as having been an avid napoleanic wargamer … None of which is seen in my tattoo.
True, and I would consider the use of personal electronic devices a trend.
Rubystreak said “if…you’re obviously not an afficionado of Japanese culture…” (emphasis mine)
So I conclude from this that she will give the benefit of doubt.
The rest of your post I can’t understand the relevance. You say you are an afficionado, and don’t have a kanji tattoo. But Rubystreak was talking about people who aren’t an afficionado but do have a kanji tattoo. So you’re not someone she’s talking about, and you are not someone she would suspect is someone she is talking about.
-FrL-
FWIW, I do believe that if someone is adopted into a tribe, and the paperwork is sent to the BIA, they are that tribe. It is as if the German government registers you as a german citizen, or the S declares yoou a US citizen, you are a citizen. Frequently now tribal affiliation is a matter of being registered by the tribe in question with the BIA. There was a whole kerfluffel here in CT about tribal membership a few years back.
And what if I did have a kanji tat? Would I be a poseur if I knew exactly what it said? Actually, I do happen to have several japanese dictionaries around, including the New Japanese-English Character Dictionary that I got when i was taking japanese in uni. Heck, Id bet that there are kanji dictionaries online now.
I prefer images, not words but that is just me. I doubt I would get a kanji, but I have seen some of the best japanese tatoo work on freinds, and they have this fantastic almost pearlescent blue that I adore. I might consider getting a small dragonfly using that color if I get the chance to get to Sasebo.
I think kanji tattoos are really cool, because Eastern cultures are so much more mystical and enlightened than ours. If I got “Strength” tattooed on my arm in English, whenever anyone looked at it, they’d just be thinking of weightlifters and stuff. But if I get the kanji for “strength” tattooed on my arm, not only do I get all these weird kooky lines and markings, I get the idea of “strength” as in “noble samurai from the land of wind and ghosts.”
