Booby Opts For Peace

Of all the cliches, i decided to get a symbol of peace.

What prompted me to get this symbol was of course the whole terrorist-threat thingy

I keep going over the incident in my head and i often think about how i could have approached the whole incident differently.

PEACEFULLY!

Placing the stencil

I'm not justifying their action of sending those horrible letters, but i'm just saying that perhaps i should have tried understanding their need to spread their word about the things happening in their country.

Of course at the time i did not know that the guy was Palestinian...i actually thought he was a Malaysian.

But regardless of that, i guess when people feel so passionate and angry about something, logic and reason will most likely go out the door and that's where i should have been more understanding.

Perfect fit!

Then of course there is my high-strung, angry-as-arse personality as well which sees me, more often than not, getting easily pissed-off and picking fights with the people around me :p

Setting up...very excited!!

Anyway i picked an Adinkra symbol : a FUNTUNFUNEFU-DENKYEMFUNEFU or "Siamese crocodiles".

I have been an admirer of Adinkra symbols for the past 5 years now, and have been wanting to get this particular symbol for the past 2 years.

And so it begins....

The Siamese crocodiles share one stomach, yet they fight over food. This symbol is a reminder that infighting and tribalism is harmful to all who engage in it.

Starts with the outline...i often find this part more painful than the filling-in

It is basically a symbol of peace where the 'wearer' achieves peace with him/herself as well as with others.

Outline done...lookin' good :)

And i must say that even before getting the tatt, whenever i got angry and was about to explode, i would think about the symbol and immediately my anger would dissipate!!!!

Location, location

The location of the tattoo, to me, is almost as important as the tattoo itself. To me, this symbol had to be somewhere i could clearly see it...so that everytime the ugly red monster tried to rear its head, i could see this symbol easily and try to take the peaceful approach instead.

Of course i made the mistake of telling my mum the meaning, and now everytime we fight she's like "Look!Look at your tattoo. Now stop fighting!"

:(

Filling-in...at this point the pain is already numbed and actually quite soothing :p

After much deliberation, i decided the best place would be my wrist. But i was of course worried, being in this profession, that i would get a lot of negative feedback. But after much discussion with friends and after testing out the design in several other locations, i decided that it would in fact look best on my wrist.

I would deal with any negativity in my own (peaceful of course) manner :p

Then of course was the matter of the size. Since i was still worried about the location, i printed out several different sizes of the symbol and had actually decided to get the smallest size done. But my tattoo artist Ernesto convinced me otherwise as too small a size would render the image 'unreadable', and so in the end we opted for the actual size :)

Almost done..

The inking itself took all of 20-30 minutes and i must say that it is hands down the prettiest tattoo i have! In fact it seems so odd to have something that pretty on someone like me!!

Imagine the Booby one in a pink dress (a stylish one without frills of course..but nevertheless pink!) and you'll get an idea of what i'm talking about :p

Final touch-up

My friends keep teasing me, saying it looks more like 2 lizards than 2 crocodiles but i don't care. I love it to death! And the more i look at it, the more i am so glad that i placed it on my wrist cos anywhere else and the 'meaning' and 'purpose' would have been lost

Plus is sooooo perrtyy!

Yay! All done!!!

The artist

Ernesto Kalum...a Sarawak-based tattoo artist who is internationally recognized particularly for his borneo tattoos. I first met Ernesto 3 years ago where i got 2 tattoos done by him. Since then i have gone back to have 2 more done

Other than his obvious talent at tattooing, what i absolutely love about him is his humility. I mean the dude is like a total rock star in Kuching and yet he is the humblest guy on earth.

Plus he has a killer sense of humour on him.

With the artist : Ernesto Kalum

I would highly recommend him especially if you want to get traditional Iban tattoos done. I have met people from different parts of the world who flew all the way to Kuching for the sole purpose of getting inked by him. You can check-out his website on the left for more details (i would strongly advise you to set an appointment first)

Thank you Dazzie for my tattoo (it was his birthday gift to me), and thanks to Rob & Ernesto for making the tattoo-experience so fantastic...as usual :p

You can view the video of the tattooing here