appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Ashlyn Chak

Tattooing emerged in Hong Kong in the mid-20th century as a service catering to Western soldiers and sailors passing through the then British colony.
The demand gave rise to East-meets-West tattoo parlours where customers could choose to be inked with “mystical and exotic” symbols of the East, such as Chinese dragons and phoenixes, or stick with traditional Western motifs like crosses, skulls and daggers.
Later, tattoos in Hong Kong became associated with the criminal underworld, as triad members got full-back tattoos featuring fierce-looking dragons, tigers and other traditional Chinese machismo symbols.
The decline in popularity of tattoos among gang members has coincided with the increasing acceptance of tattoos by mainstream society and their popularity among the young.

A new generation of practitioners – many of whom are women – are paying homage to traditional Chinese culture in their own ways. In doing so, they have created a tattoo genre that is essentially the antithesis of triad-style ink.
Kwan Hiu-ping is in her mid-thirties and wears her dyed red hair tied in a bun, especially when she is working in her studio in Kwun Tong, an industrial neighbourhood in Hong Kong. Her arms are adorned with many tattoos, but she has a calm and gentle demeanour.
She picked up the tattoo gun for the first time seven years ago when she was in her twenties. She had appreciated the craft since she was a teenager, and her interest in traditional Chinese culture started young.
“I began practising traditional Chinese painting at age four or five. As I got a bit older, when my classmates read Taiwanese romance novels that were more modern and sentimental, I was way more into Chinese classics like The Peony Pavilion and Dream of the Red Chamber.”
As an apprentice, Kwan learned how to execute the Western- and Japanese-style tattoos popular in Hong Kong, but later came back to her traditional Chinese art roots. She cites danqing ink wash paintings and the Lingnan School art movement in the early 20th century, which sought to modernise Chinese painting through borrowing from other artistic traditions, as inspirations.


“I really enjoy the subtle and poetic expression of traditional Chinese art, even though [the art form as a tattoo style] is still niche in Hong Kong,” Kwan says.
She adds that most of her clients are Chinese, either local or diasporic, and that they tend to ask for natural motifs such as birds and flowers, as well as mythical ones such as dragons and hulu (calabash gourd), an ancient Chinese symbol for health.
Kwan’s dragons are unlike the aggressive-looking ones created with bold line work that used to be common in Hong Kong. Instead, they are more fluid and channel the layered aesthetic of Chinese ink painting.
Elyse Yip Nga-fong is a tattoo artist who works out of a studio in Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood. She takes a similar approach to Kwan, though her style is heavy in line work, less referential and leans more into spirituality.

After majoring in painting for her bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Yip spent time dabbling in other creative disciplines before becoming a tattooing apprentice in 2020.
“I find tattoos to be very different from other artistic mediums. You’re putting your work onto real human beings, not canvases,” she says.
“I started tattooing around the same time I got into spirituality, so I really wanted to infuse ideas about the universe, mindfulness and positive energy into my work and plant those seeds onto people’s skin.”
Yip’s preference for more abstract aesthetics is shown in her Chinese characters, which are inspired by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, tribal totems and natural motifs that flow softly along the body.
“Some people may think it looks like random doodlings, and educated designers may think my fonts don’t make sense since I didn’t study design, but it doesn’t matter to me,” she says.
A few years ago, Yip began diving deeper into Buddhism, which has in turn influenced her work. Some of the most common requests from her clients now include the characters for nim, meaning “idea”, “thought” or “belief”; sum, meaning “heart”; and gwong, meaning “light”.


“In recent years, there have been more mothers of different ages [who come to me]. Some of them had been through much hardship and decided that, ‘I’m at the age where I have to do something for myself,’” she says.
“The commonality is that, instead of getting tattoos because they were going through something difficult, they had already got through it and wanted to document their awakening or transformation.”
Unlike Kwan and Yip, Bella Yuen Yui-man – a resident artist at Mei Wah Tattoo in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighbourhood – did not study art formally. She studied journalism at university to appease her traditional family, and began a tattoo apprenticeship while she was studying.
As a child, Yuen went to temples with her Buddhist mother, studied the mantras and briefly learned Chinese calligraphy. But when she started tattooing around eight years ago, she focused on more modern aesthetics, such as the new-school tattoo style characterised by bold lines, vibrant colours and exaggerated features.

Her breakthrough project came in 2022, when a client in Berlin, Germany, asked for a design referencing the Buddhist concept of the “three poisons”: ignorance, attachment and aversion.
Yuen decided that using Chinese art styles would align better with the theme and executed the tattoo accordingly.
“I had learned Chinese painting for maybe two years when I was a kid. At the time, I was too young to appreciate it. But I think it foreshadowed my interest,” she says.
“Now, instead of the traditional ink and xuan paper, I use watercolours, which are one of the most accessible materials in most tattoo parlours, to practise.”


And watercolours are easy to take on the road. Yuen was a touring tattoo artist for most of 2025, visiting European cities including Groningen in the Netherlands, Lyon in France, and London.
She says that in both Europe and East Asia, there are clients of all ethnicities who go into consultations with ample knowledge of Buddhist philosophies.
“Sometimes, people would come in telling me, ‘I read this book, this ideology, this theory,’ and send me detailed explanations of what they want. But there are also those, in both places, who would be very honest in simply appreciating the aesthetics,” she says.


How to relax and detox through ikebana, the ancient Japanese art of flower arranging

Don’t let AI take over our human creative expression

Meet Woody Harrelson’s wife, Laura Louie, who joined him at the Brothers premiere

Manga mania: how Japanese comics conquered the world

Hong Kong women tattoo artists who draw on traditional Chinese culture to ink differently

Bella Yuen tells the Post that, as a child, she used to go to Buddhist temples and chapels in Hong Kong with her Buddhist mother. She also read Chinese Buddhist texts and practised calligraphy briefly, which “planted the seed” of her unique traditional Chinese tattooing style now. Photo: Bella Yuen

Bella Yuen tattoos a client at her Hong Kong studio. The artist, who is greatly influenced by Chinese calligraphy and painting, is one of a group in the city taking inspiration from traditional elements to create something new. Photo: Nic Tse

Kwan Hiu-ping is one of the new generation of women Hong Kong tattoo artists paying homage to traditional Chinese culture in a unique way. Photo: Know Tattoo Studio

Kwan picked up a tattoo gun about seven years ago and is heavily influenced by traditional Chinese paintings. Photo: Know Tattoo Studio

One of Kwan’s nature-themed tattoos designed in the style of traditional Chinese paintings. Photo: Know Tattoo Studio

Elyse Yip studied fine arts at university and finds that tattooing is “very different” from other art forms in that it uses the human body as a canvas. Photo: Elyse Yip

A tattoo by Yip of the Chinese character nim meaning “idea” or “belief”. Photo: Elyse Yip

Yip’s tattoos are influenced by spirituality. Photo: Elyse Yip

Bella Yuen became a tattoo apprentice at age 20, but only in recent years gathered the courage to start creating tattoos influenced by traditional Chinese art styles. Photo: Nic Tse

Bella Yuen’s 2022 work inspired by the Buddhist concept of the “three poisons”. Photo: Bella Yuen/Instagram/irregular.tattooer

A tattoo by Yuen. Photo: Bella Yuen

‘Sweat and tears’: a Peking opera actress’s dedication to the Chinese art form

Peking opera actress Zhang Wanting (left) performs a difficult balancing move during a show at the Jixiang Theatre in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

A Peking opera performance at the Jixiang Theatre in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

A Peking opera actor walks past costumes in a dressing area at the Jixiang Theatre. Photo: AP

Zhang practises balancing on a chair armrest before a performance. Photo: AP

Zhang has been training in Peking opera since she was a child. Photo: AP

Shanghai’s dance halls and clubs are thriving as retirees put on their dancing shoes

Guests dance at the Shiguang Dance Hall in Shanghai. The city’s dance halls offer retirees vibrant social spaces to exercise and connect. Photo: AFP

An elderly man poses for a picture at the Hai Shang Jiu Meng Dance Hall in Shanghai. For the elderly, dance halls are gyms, entertainment venues and social clubs rolled into one. Photo: AFP

Kuai Yuqin (centre left) dancing with a partner at the Paramount Ballroom, which also hosts parties for young people in collaboration with other dance institutions. Photo: AFP

Wang Li, 65, poses for a picture at the Hai Shang Jiu Meng Dance Hall in Shanghai. Photo: AFP

Guests dance at the Hai Shang Jiu Meng Dance Hall in Shanghai. It is unclear how many of these dance halls still exist. Photo: AFP

Why Hong Kong artist’s bedroom music-inspired solo exhibition is ‘about self-healing’

Un Cheng poses among paintings featured in Bedroom Paintings at Blindspot Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang. The Hong Kong artist says her latest solo exhibition is “a visual diary about intimacy”. Photo: Elson Li

A visitor takes in one of Un Cheng’s pieces at her solo exhibition Bedroom Paintings, at Blindspot Gallery. Photo: Elson Li

The Final Puff by Un Cheng. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

Silver Spoon, Baby Quilt, Meows and Back & Forth by Un Cheng. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

Cheng poses with her artwork, First Snow in Lok. 1106. Photo: Elson Li

Future coming or what? by Un Cheng. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

What did I puke? No clue by Un Cheng. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

Mr. S off the Train by Un Cheng. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

How to play mahjong and how to win at mahjong: basic rules to get a game started, the suits, winning hands – and what to say to claim your victory

Want to win mahjong? Here are the basics of how to win in this traditional Chinese tile-based tabletop game. Photo: Antony Dickson

These mahjong tiles have been stacked into rows two tiles high. Players take a tile in turn from one of these stacks, moving on to the next stack when the first is depleted. Photo: Antony Dickson

An example of “chicken hand”, which is four sets of any category. Photo: Antony Dickson

Examples of “sheung” (top), “pong” (middle) and “kong”. Photo: Antony Dickson

Lifestyle

Arts

These artists channel elements of Chinese painting, calligraphy and Buddhism through their needles in a new form of ‘poetic expression’


These artists channel elements of Chinese painting, calligraphy and Buddhism through their needles in a new form of ‘poetic expression’.


Chinese culture

Hong Kong

Hong Kong culture

Religion in China

Hong Kong women tattoo artists who draw on traditional Chinese culture to ink differently

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}These artists channel elements of Chinese painting, calligraphy and Buddhism through their needles in a new form of ‘poetic expression’

These artists channel elements of Chinese painting, calligraphy and Buddhism through their needles in a new form of ‘poetic expression’