Learning where to draw the line

Cao Chen, 26, a tattooist who runs a parlor in Beijing

The most common tattooing faux pas is to ink in the name of your current boyfriend or girlfriend. What will you do if you break up? Anniversaries and images of your lover are also bad ideas. I usually suggest that people avoid these things, but if they insist, I recommend they use pinyin (the system of Romanization for Chinese characters) abbreviations, which are easier to change, cover or remove, rather than a person’s full name.

The second-biggest mistake is choosing the wrong image. One customer wanted a tattoo of nine giant snakes on his right arm, but I told him it was better to have one snake, or there would be too many lines and the tattoo would look messy.

Tattoos are still new in China, but the market is growing. It’s no longer a small street business where people pay 100 yuan ($16) and choose an image from a list hanging on a wall. In Beijing, a skilled tattoo artist can make more than 80,000 yuan a month.

The work is becoming more artistic. A growing number of people want to design a unique tattoo in conjunction with their tattooist, and we want to create original work as well.

Compared with the West, tattoo art in China still lacks innovation and imagination. I’m saving money to visit the United States and learn more. Many of my works are inspired by tattoo artists from overseas, but I add my own elements. As a Chinese tattooist, I would like to see more references to Chinese history and culture in my work. Cao Chen spoke with Peng Yining