I haven't seen anyone with large tattoos of that nature, all over their upper legs.

I don't know what others in the Lao community think about it, but I can only speak for myself, and that is I don't like tattoos. Guys with excessive tattoos are not appealing to me, but I can live with a small one on a certain part of their body.

And the samoan styles:

We must be related!

Admin Saovaluck wrote on 15^th Mar, 2011 at 8:18am:


Easy tiger. "Jai yen yen nang".

What do you mean, "they won't attract girls"?.
Read this (again): "if you were unwilling to get one emblazoned all over your lower half, then you would remain a "pubao" forever. No one wanted to marry a coward." (This is not a dircet qoute, by the way, but I'm more or less quoting myself). As you can read, the motive for all this body art was to "attract girls". Had you not made the sacrifice, then your fate would forever be sealed as a bachelor (and meat-beater).

Can you please elaborate on the this statement that you just made: "Maybe they understand that it is frowned upon by the community".
Alot of my uncles have tattoos (differing from the topic currently in discussion, of course) scattered miscellaneously over their bodies. Since they were militia, they probably needed the protection offered by the "spells" that came with such art. Not everybody was mesmerised to the point of stupidity, courtesy of this hocus-pocus mythology. An uncle even confided, after succumbing to the "magic" of liquor, that, "in no way in hell, was I just gonna just stand there and let them get a free shot off. I'm not that stupid!".
Anyway. I really am curious in regards to stereotypes (in Laos)  in relation to tattoos. Over here everybody has at least one!

Goodnight. I'm going to bed.
Please take your time with this one. I would really like to read - in detail - your response to this matter.

Old school tattoo is usually for protection and supernatural believe. It has a lot of meaning and done by Buddhist Monk or shaman. For young generation, 21st century its just for look, and symbolic.  

llX wrote on 15^th Mar, 2011 at 10:42pm:


My uncles did say that theirs was done nearby, in a village temple. Their tattoos consisit of figures brandishing all sorts of weapons from machetes to knives. "Monsters" with heads in the form of wild pigs, to a snake wrapped around a buddha, are just some of the gruesome looking characters adorned on their torsos. Magic chants imbedded in some other "foreign" language was also common. None could  actually read what the "spells" meant.

Admin Saovaluck wrote on 15^th Mar, 2011 at 6:54pm:



I don't simply because I would later change my mind. 55555  Only a couple of people in my family have tattoos. My 2 brothers, and I think a couple of my nieces and a nephew does also. Each his own. Keo doesn't either. I am glad for that.