Draft Dodging South Korean Style
Tattoos Are A New Escape Route For Draft Dodgers In South Korea
(AP) Koreans have a curse - "You should be tattooed!" - that reflects the ancient practice of using tattoos to brand thieves and slaves.
But a nationwide police search launched this month for men with tattoos has rounded up a new breed of criminals - young men who use the body art to try to evade the country's mandatory military service, crucial to its defense against communist North Korea.
About 170 men have been arrested for "willfully tampering with their bodies to avoid military duty" - a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. [snip]
According to this article Korea tattoo history is similar to the history in Japan described on this blog a few posts ago: tattoos were once meant for criminals and slaves and were avoided by most of the rest of the population because of the Confucian dictum against defacing one's body.
Nowadays tattoos are fractionally more popular, although the art of applying tattoos in Korea is occasionally practiced underground.
I include no illustrations in this post because I could find nothing on the web that is clearly labelled 'Korean tattoo' art or otherwise. One of the popular tattoo magazine websites has links to many countries--but not to Korea. I guess that says Koreans really don't like tattoos.
If you ever run into a tattoo dragon, count the toes. Koreans traditionally prefer four-toed dragons, while Japanese prefer three-toed dragon and Chinese favor the five-toed variety.
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