Tattoos – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly!

Mouse Tally: Still 95, Mickey is making me work hard for my century.

I’ve recently taken over running the Chumey School newspaper and this post is based on an article I wrote.

As a foreigner working in a Bhutanese school, one of the things that surprises me most is the number of students with tattoos. In the West, most tattoos are done by professionals in strictly controlled, hygienic conditions and you have to be at least 18 to get one. This is not the case here at Chumey School and from my observations, the story is similar across Bhutan.

I wanted to know why students got tattoos. Who makes them? How do they do it? Are Chumey students happy with their tattoos? Interestingly for something that is often on plain view for all to see, many students were reluctant to talk about their tattoos and nobody from Chumey School would show their face in a photo with their tattoos. 

A student from a different school, proud of his tats

The only way I could get students to talk was if I promised anonymity and even then many would not allow me to photograph their tattoos.  One girl in Year 9 regretted her tattoo on her leg immediately after it was done because it looked so poor. The tattoo was done by a friend using an unsterilized needle and watercolour paints.

She told me, “When professionals make tattoos, they look beautiful. I wanted mine to be beautiful but it isn’t.  I regret it because now people see me as a bad company woman.”

What would Hugh Heffner say?

Another girl deeply regretted the tattoos on her hands which frankly looked like mindless doodling.  She would not let me photograph them.  One boy believed that his tattoos will have disappeared in a year or two, thus allowing him to fulfil his ambition to join the army which has a ban on recruits with tattoos. 

Probably the best tattoo I've seen

 

I even spoke to one girl who was so filled with regret at the tattoo on her arm that she tried to burn it off with embers from a fire. Now she has an ugly tattoo with an even uglier scar across it. Even the local technical college has now introduced a ban on students with tattoos leaving some students with very few employment options.

I’m not against tattoos done by professionals on adults. I just think it is a shame that so many children are getting these dreadful home-made ones that they almost always regret. I wrote the newspaper story to hopefully make the students ‘think before they ink.’ I hope my words will have some effect.

I am told the P stands for the initial of his girlfriend

Many students have tattoos of this standard

The Tooth Will Out

(It used to be said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but I suspect it’s puns.)

Mouse Tally: 95 haven’t seen one for ages.

Somehow I thought I’d blogged about this topic but apparently not. A few months ago I was told at short notice that I should take my class of Year 3s to the science lab for a medical examination. There I found a team of medics (seemingly straight from the 1950s) offering: an eye test, a general ‘stethoscope’ sort of test and the dreaded dentist. 

Thomas getting an eye test

Having a really good look!

Saving time, eye tests in threes

I felt so sorry for my poor kids as they queued silently and stoically for the dreaded dentist who casually used her dental ‘pliers’ to pull out offending teeth and drop them into a small bowl that was rapidly filling up. We took the opportunity to get our kids checked out too and the dentist had her pliers on one of Lois’s front ‘baby teeth’ ready to yank when Mum spoke up and said, “Back off Lady” or words to that effect. Sadly for my class they weren’t all baby teeth and some kids are already missing an adult tooth.

My Class 3 boys putting on a brave face

 

No local anaesthetic for tooth removal, these kids are tough!

Needless to say there was no prior warning (if I was a kid I’d definitely have bunked off school if I had known) and there were also no requests for parental consent. I can’t imagine how a western parent would react if their child returned home from school minus a tooth or two.

 

Open wide Thomas

 

After tears, Amelie let the dentist have a look

Mmm, I'd love to get my pliers on that wobbly tooth

Be afraid, be very afraid

Pure elation after avoiding the pliers