Chinese tattooing: Shanghai's master of the needle

Xing Haisong’s studio, John Long Tattoo, lies in a small alley strewn with plants and laundry lines, around the corner from his storefront on Maoming Nan Lu. A pair of double doors reveals a brightly lit room, complete with worn leather couches, blackened ashtrays and magazines. This is Xing Haisong’s Chinese tattooing workshop where Asia’s tattooing cultures meet, and, customer by customer, this needle master helps bring tattooing into the Chinese mainstream.

An established studio

The lived-in atmosphere of his studio is appropriate. Xing Haisong is a Shanghai tattoo institution. 

In the permanent ink business since 1997, he is a veteran of the Shanghai tattoo scene, but his love of the needle extends far before that. Xing Haisong spent five years in Taiwanese learning the trade before traveling to Japan to hone his skill. Now, having mastered the blend of Asian tattoo art, is he back to settle in Shanghai. 

邢海松正在改变人们对中国纹身的印象。

Xing Haisong’s designs run the gamut from the usual butterflies to depictions of fiery dragons spanning an entire body, although his favorite are traditional Chinese designs.

For Xing Haisong, tattooing is not about making a statement or taking a stand, but more about a love of the process. "I try my best to reduce the negative effect of tattoo in most Chinese people's way of thinking and make them realize that it is an actual art," he says.

The road to acceptability

Indeed, Xing Haisong was well versed in this world of ink before it was acceptable in his home country. The Middle Kingdom does have a long history of Chinese tattooing, but unlike its more established reputation in Southeast Asia, tattooing has historically been relegated to members of the criminal underworld and minority groups, or as punishment. 

Things have begun to change now and Xing Haisong is a part of that. 

“The view of tattoo here is much more open now,especially in Shanghai,” says Mandy, a tattoo artist from Xing Haisong’s studio. 

Xing Haisong, however, remains remarkably neutral about the ebbs and flows of respectability. He insists that the clientele hasn’t necessarily changed that much -- he simply gets more and more people coming in. “We get everybody from every walk in life,” he says, “From teachers, doctors and lawyers to stewardesses.”

“We even get government officials from time to time,” he says with a smile. When officials are coming in, you know a trend has hit its stride.

Chinese tattooing: a family business

Xing Haisong is not alone in his work. His wife, Violet, does much of the translation for the revolving cast of foreigners that parade through his doors, coming in for Xing Haisong’s art as much as for his reputation of running a clean studio. The lack of hygiene in tattoo studios is still an issue plaguing many parlors in Shanghai. 

He has a picture of his daughter in the studio -- depicted as a fat, happy baby -- adding a warm air to a place not normally connected to the concept of family. Yet again, Xing Haisong is changing the Chinese tattoo rulebook. 

I try my best to reduce the negative effect of tattoo in most Chinese people way of thinking and make them realize that it is an actual art.— Xing Haisong, Chinese tattooing artistt

His family acts as an excuse for a clear work-play balance: they travel. A lot. The storefront renovation was put on hold as they traveled to Beijing. One of his favorite places is Nepal. Xing Haisong uses his travels as inspiration for his growing collection of artistic tattoo designs.

Even his wife has branched out, opening a store named Frangipani, which sells souvenirs they pick up on the road. “They are traveling trophies,” Violet says about her wares. 

Evolving art 

Xing Haisong's traveling is part of his business: his experience, family, travels and extensive friendships with artists around Asia have made Xing Haisong’s tattoo art a world unto itself. Every time he leaves Shanghai, he comes back with new designs for his already extensive collection of ideas. 

Mike McCabe, tattoo aficionado from Skin & Ink, remarks that he admires Xing’s friends and family-oriented business.

"They have always used these friendships in a good way to find the artistic connections between Eastern and Western art,” he says, remarking on Xing Haisong’s broad range of designs. “[Xing] is a skilled tattoo artist and he creates very well done tattoos. He understands how to create connections between Eastern and Western styles.”

Xing simply attributes it to fortune, happy to be part of the Chinese tattooing movement as it moves towards becoming an accepted art form. He accepts it all with steady grace -- and, of course, a very steady hand.