NO Club

[parasitegirl]

Attempts to join a health club today were killed by the existence of my tattoo.

Comments

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

whut??

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Puppy thought I was absurd for asking about if my tattoo needed to be covered. He thought that modern Japan wasn't still insane about the yakuza-tat connection.

I was watching his jaw drop as he said "But...look at her. She's not yakuza. So, even if it's covered you won't let her join??"

Yoga studios don't care, even if I practice with my tattoo exposed.

I'm looking into yoga studios, and into applying at a different nearby health club and just not mentioning it and changing with my back to my locker.

[bluemoonsaga.livejournal.com]

you're not a yakuza moll??

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

As much as bad suits, punch perms, and track suits with cartoon characters on them turn me on...alas, no. I'm no yak-a-moll.

[warpedpuppy.livejournal.com]

wow

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

Wow. Learn something new every day. Where else do you run into this stigma?

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

God, they still do the punch perms?! That's got to be almost 30 years running of bad hair.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

Before I came to Japan peple told me the tattoo would be a HUGE problem.

But I'm a small female, it wasn't. Little old men on the train were curious about it but nor repulsed. I taught with it. I did cover it at the elementary school (although it was often exposed at the high school) but no one told me to do it. I did more than two years of hot yoga with it...and I wasn't the only person with one. The amount of Japanese bellydancers with tattoos also lulled me into calmness...

But fitness clubs, still...

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

You're foriegn and female, like me. Daily reactions to your tattoos would probably be about curiousity and, with the exception of public baths and joining a health club, you'd be allowed to forget that it's taboo.

Foriegn men are apt to ge a little bit of shit, but that's more about foreign men issues and tattoos being used as a tool to be sort of assholish.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

Not as popular as they used to be...and the bad track suits have mostly replaced horrible 80's sweaters...but...