(Week 8) Trip to the piercing studio

 So I got a new piercing. I got a smiley because I thought that it was a little more unique than most of the labrets, medusas and tongue piercings that you see around (also I’m not prepared to give up food to heal a tongue, yet!). Besides, this one is discreet enough to hide from the people at home. I’ve been refused, and even fired(ouch) from jobs because of my piercings before, but I’ve been lucky enough to find others who are willing to employ me, because it either does not bother them (artistic types)or they think my ‘image’ adds variety to their staff (boss who is the same age as me). So far I’ve been able to remain unaffected by what others think of my piercings, for every negative comment I get i also  get a positive one. Once, the uncle at the Indian store at Canteen B asked me ‘do people shun you?’ and I laughed it off in his face, but inside I was thinking, ‘funny, I never noticed or thought about it that way!”   

My own experiences aside, This post will aim to talk about how piercings and tattoos are perceived in Singapore based on my own observations and from the anecdotes that my piercer tells me. The information in this post was collected over a few visits to the Piercer i usually go to.

Where body modification is concerned, I get the impression that people are still abit more judgmental (though this is improving!) towards people with tattoos and piercings. Somehow it seems that tattoos are much more accepted than piercings these days. People also claim to be put off by tattoos and piercings because of the ‘pain factor’.

Although I personally think body modification is commonly just a matter of personal style, just like Prinsky article mentions “there is no research demonstrating a connection in punk or heavy metal with delinquency, but police and probation departments… have assumed such a casual relationship”. The fact that body modifications and delinquent or unlawful behaviour are not instantly correlated in every case, its just perhaps because of media associations and a few isolated examples that make everyone seem guilty of being a ‘bad person’.

There are of course, certain stereotypes that come with tattoos and piercings, as a form so social deviance 'pai gia's (Bad kids) or even with gangs and illegal activity. These are not unfounded. take a look at this woodcut by Koeh Sia Yong, titled Extortion Woodblock Print on Paper. Taken from 1957, this is part of a series of woodblock prints that supported the wiping out, or ‘cleaning up’ of Singapore’s back alleys and underground activity in the mid 50s-60s

At its most basic level this picture can be simply interpreted as ‘gangster extorts ‘protection’ money from innocent shop owner’. The figure on the right, presumably the ‘gangster’ has his shirt splayed open revealing a huge dragon tattoo on his chest. Like as if the ‘dragon tattoo’ is automatically an indicator of a gang member. Admittedly, this is an old image from Singapore’s history but i feel that this woodblock is already very indicative of the mindset that the society is built upon. If anything, is it not proof that we already started out classifying people with tattoos as bad people? Taking a look at various tattoo artists’ portfolios in Singapore furthermore shows that these type of ‘traditional chinese ah-long’ tattoos are still very much in use today, but one cannot assume that ‘dragon tattoo’ = gangster still, just like how people with Irezumi does not automatically make them Yakuza. Also, there is still a rule that if you wanted to be a policeman in Singapore you cannot have any tattoos or piercings, and boys with either of those will not be allocated to the police force when they serve NS, which shows that the ‘law enforces’ in Singapore still see tattoos as undesirable.

The modification scene in Singapore is concentrated among ‘off beat’ places like Far east plaza, queensway shopping centre and haji-lane area. Some jewelry shops in the more prominent shopping centres like Raffles city and Wisma atria offer piercing services as well, which ironically, use the ‘gun’ method which is actually a horrid, harmful way to do piercings and are administered by sales staff who simply are untrained in piercings. Yet these places remain because as people see these places as more accessible and common area to get pierced.

Although I doubt many know this, the Piercer revealed that he himself, and an ex-colleague of his who is a tattoo artist at another of the more prominent establishments have both been through rehabilitation which actually propagates the stereotype of people with tattoos and piercings. So in a way, it does not help the image of modified people that it so happens that the practitioners themselves have had past associations with ‘unlawful’ behaviour.

He also related to me about how Marc Pinto, once the only guy with a shop that does human branding in Singapore had to move back to Australia (where he is doing very well now) because his business was not doing well in Singapore - perhaps an indication that Singaporeans are as yet not too open to other forms of modification. There now exist no shop which offers human branding in Singapore. There was an incident when his shop had been vandalised with spray paint and had eggs thrown all over the entrance when they were closed- it was never solved who did such things to Pinto’s studio, but it perhaps demonstrates the animosity that some people had toward his trade. Perhaps this further discouraged him from continuing in Singapore, and I think its a very sad case, for everyone else who has an interest in getting a brand. He may not have moved back if he had felt his practise was more welcome by people.

Here are two videos about human branding, just to illustrate the different ways in which the very same procedure is perceived by different media.

Skin Art is a mini docu-series created in Singapore a few years ago about body modification in Singapore. In this episode Marc Pinto (still in Singapore at the time) shows us what human branding is like. Although I feel like the host talks with what he think the public perception is of body mods which makes him seem a little shallow or judgemental when he himself has tattoos, this series tries its best to show tattoos and piercings in a more positive light, everyone is happy and treat what is going on as very matter-of-fact.

Contrast it to this other video however, source unknown, presenting human branding in a very primitive, negative light “his body might go into shock mode from the pain”. Which of course, other-ises branding as something that  only ‘extreme’ people do.

Back to the current situation in Singapore, among the younger generation I think tattoos are becoming more accepted, especially with girls, with many of them getting feminine tattoos like butterflies or birds or even just text. From facebooks updates one can see perfectly ‘normal’ people of society getting discreet tattoos they can cover at most social settings. With piercings it is a similar scenario - there are the more common piercings - the piercer stated that the most common piercing he does is the navel piercing. Tongue and helix piercings are pretty common and ‘accepted’ as well, and these days, so are microdermals and surface bars. But things such as earlobe stretching, facial piercings, people are a little bit more cautious with, and there is a almost a kind of stigma that surrounds stretched earlobes in Singapore.  (In contrast when I went to Thailand, almost every other guy had stretched lobes, but no girls)

Interestingly as well people deem nipple and genital piercings with the preconceived notions of ‘taboo’ when in fact nipple and genital piercings were one of the first piercings to be mastered by Fakir Musafar and Jim Ward. In Modern Primitives they would admit to struggle with navel(flat surface: problematic) and cartilage piercings (working through the bone:problematic), but insist that female genital piercings ‘heal just like that!’ . Today people seem to think the opposite. Although one female piercer observed that nipple piercings among women seemed to be gaining popularity in Singapore. One could surmise that piercings also have to do with trend- different piercings rise and fall in popularity over time.

Links: Here are some studios in Singapore where you can see their work- reflective of whats being done/ popular today in Singapore 

Primitive body art and piercing- Navel and tongue piercings commonly done here
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Primitive-Body-Art-and-Piercing/102524869850966

Rise Above - Aidil is a prominent piercer in Singapore, precise work. 
https://www.facebook.com/RiseAboveTattooPiercing

Elvin Tattoo - Super high definition tattoos 
https://www.facebook.com/Elvintattooart

Familiar Strangers - Apple is a tattoo artist who does traditional Chinese/Japanese themes in really good colorwork.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Familiar-Strangers-Tattoo-Studio-Singapore/146520875359634

Me on the ground, You in mid-air

Human Suspension, in whatever cultural manifestation is carried out in a similar setup: Using hooks pierced through a person's skin and is being suspended via ropes attached to these hooks.

Other than Native American tribes cited by Fakir Musafar and several "groups"(for the want of a better word) of people in South Asia, human suspension techniques seem to be a rather recent trend in the western world, developed in America by Allen Falkner (A student of Musafar) who started the practice in 1992- although previously Fakir Musafar had been known to hang from hooks for ritualistic practice before that.  

'Ritualistic', 'indigenous' practice of suspension

Today,although the concept of human suspension is well known throughout the 'modified' community, it does not seem to be a widespread phenomenon for some reason or the other. Nevertheless this blogpost aims to explore the concept of 'identity' amongst those who practice suspension.

I suppose outwardly it is difficult to identify someone who ‘practices suspension’ simply because there isn’t a particular ‘style’ or ‘dress’ that distinguishes one as so. Granted, the people who are into suspension tend to also be into body modifications, but the two don’t necessarily go hand in hand. For most people, being suspended is seen as being more of a personal experience, with close knit people coming together to help each other achieve whatever it is they want to feel. According to an interview with Allen Falkner though, there are some other types of suspension which exist, and they can be ritualistic and theatrical as well, other than the personal factor. These, again, aren’t independent of each other, as he claims. It can be theatrical as well as personal at the same time, for example.

Criss Angel's suspension stunt

Lets take the case study from a set of videos from ‘the modified world’.The people in their suspension ‘team’ or ‘group’ are made up of piercers in the Michigan area, although they belong to a bigger suspension interest organisation called A.G.R.O, who have several teams throughout the US. These are people who can be considered as doing it out of ‘personal interest’, and fulfilling something they want to do for themselves; take for exam ‘Evil Dave’ who considered it an achievement to be able to hoist himself up (episode 29), or even Anna in episode 30, where even though her suspension experience was not as successful, it was more of the ‘spiritual’ or personal emotion experience which she gained from it. Furthermore they do it within a rather exclusive community; in an enclosed area and videos are shown in a very straightforward, matter of fact manner that does not overly dramatify this seemingly extreme practice.  Another example of suspension would be Criss Angel’s suspension from helicopter stunt, which can be considered rather a theatrical, commercial show of suspension, to show more of the ‘fear factor’ side of suspension.

Episode 28

Episode 29

Episode 30

Because suspension itself is a physical act and has to be carried out (as opposed to, for example punk, which can exist as an ideology outside of style and music) in this case I think Cressy’s objectivist model of status hierarchy of ‘insider strata’ and ‘outsiders’ can be applicable to the suspension community. For example, people in the inner strata could be the ‘pioneers’ of it such as Musafar, Falkner, and maybe even these A.G.R.O  heads, such as Kenny, who are so called the ‘experts’ on suspension and practice it and develop, contribute actively to the methods and types of suspension. Outside the ‘inner strata’ could be people who engage in suspension, and this group can be further divided into those who do it on a ‘regular’ basis, and those who want to just try it out, or do it for the experience, for whatever reason appropriate to them. (See for example, “Suspension!!!-*lots of pics*” an experience of someone who did suspension to mark her 21st birthday) The outer strata would then consist of interested observers and people who have a strong interest in it but have yet to try it for themselves for whatever reason (fear, resource unavailability).

Link to article: 42610-Suspension!!!-*lots-of-pics*

The Widdicombe and Bovone articles seem to approach subcultural style from an ‘outside looking in’ point of view and try to reconcile these people’s subcultural lives with the general ‘normal society’ that they have to function in. Widdicombe was interested in how the youths developed their subcultural identity from wanting to be ‘different’ from people which then grew into associating with a certain group of people. In this case, I think that the people who are into suspension, mostly already feel like they’re ‘different’ from the rest of society, perhaps stemming from the fact that they are already into body modifications in the first place. But (to me at least) I do not think they do this because they want to BE different, but because they are seeking an alternative experience which can only be got through suspension. Say for example someone has little interest in other form of body modification but is passionate about suspension; this seeking of a different experience from mainstream society (since I am assuming that suspension is not a widespread cultural practice by the rest of the ‘western’ or even ‘asia’ population) would still be their driving motif. But it is difficult to be an independent since one would obviously need even a small team of people (professional piercer, someone who understands rigging) to carry out the suspension setup. In the case of Bovone and her idea of ‘image’, since one could ‘look’ like a perfectly normal person and still be into suspension, there really isnt a need to ‘adopt’ a different sort of mindset or image of oneself, other than how you might handle people who do not ‘understand’ suspension .

At the end of the day, when it comes to identity and suspension, from what I can tell at least, that suspension is more of a personal act and their identification with it has little to do with having to ‘make a statement’ or a big issue about it (unless they were just doing it show off from the start) . The personal satisfaction that comes out from being suspended can stem purely out of a desire to be suspended and does not necessarily equate to them wanting to be different from society in the first place, since technically no-one has to know. But a subculture for suspension has to exist because suspension is quite a community based activity in the sense that you need people who are in the know of how to do it, and a moral support group to overcome the perceived mind-over-matter initial apprehension of ‘going up’. It just so happens that people who practice it today tend to be outwardly modified as well, so perhaps that ‘image’ that suspension has currently is that its ‘something modified people do’ when really it doesn’t take a ‘want’ to be so different from everyone else to be suspended because its more of a personal journey.   

Other Links:
Interview with Allen Falkner

By way of interest, Thaipusam in Kerala taken in 2012, showing that 'hook hanging' is still a ritualistic practice in South Asia today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq5I55ma464