MS Features: The Singaporean tattoo artist who combines ink with his Taoist shaman practice
When most people think of a tattoo artist, they imagine someone surrounded by tattoo machines, ink bottles, and clients waiting their turn.
For Singaporean tattoo artist Keith Ho, 24, though, there is another side to his job.
Besides his tattooing career, Keith is also a Taoist shaman, a role he has kept largely in the background for years.
Now, he is bringing both sides of his life together in a rather unusual way: by tattooing Taoist talismans onto people’s bodies.
Keith claims that he is possibly the only person doing this, although he acknowledges that the practice is not something everyone will agree with.
For him, however, it is a way of combining his two careers while bringing a traditional Chinese practice into the modern world.
From watching “Mr Vampire” to becoming a Taoist shaman
Keith’s interest in Taoist practices started when he was a child.
At around four or five years old, he was fascinated by the classic Hong Kong vampire movies such as “Mr Vampire” starring the late Lam Ching-ying.
Source: IMDb
He would draw “Bagua” symbols on his Winnie the Pooh jacket, make toy swords out of toilet rolls and newspapers, and even create his own “talismans”.
At the time, it was simply something a curious child did for fun.
But Keith said he had also been able to “see things” from a young age, although he initially did not trust his own experiences and wondered if he was imagining things.
He shared with MS News that he was officially ordained as a shaman at around the age of 20 or 21.
His mother, who is also his master, later told him that he had a particularly “sensitive body” and was naturally suited to this path.
Keith also said that becoming a shaman was partly a choice he made because he did not want to become a medium. This is because a deity will enter or possess the practitioner’s body during rituals.
Instead, he preferred to learn the practices himself and communicate with the deity directly.
Kept his shaman side private for years
Despite having practised for years, Keith initially did not want to tell the world about his work as a shaman.
His full-time career has always been tattooing, which he has been doing for about eight years.
It was only around April or May this year that he started posting more openly about his life as a shaman on his own social media platforms.
Previously, he had appeared on supernatural-related content as a shaman, but viewers knew little about the extent of his practice.
@keith.inks 今天带师弟去净宅 House Cleansing & Blessing 鬼怪煞气打扰？法安在此何鬼敢当何煞敢住 #fyp #fypsg #shaman #六壬伏英舘 #净宅
Once he started sharing more, people realised that the tattoo artist with the heavily inked appearance also performed rituals, cleansings, and other Taoist practices.
Keith admits that his appearance does not exactly fit the stereotype of a Taoist shaman.
“I don’t look like your average typical shaman,” he said, adding that people sometimes joke that he could work as a male host instead.
His tattoos and youthful appearance can also make others sceptical when they first meet him for religious work.
To overcome this, he has even learnt to speak Hokkien and improved his Chinese reading and writing so he can better understand and perform traditional chants.
“Why can’t we have our history?”
The idea for talisman tattoos came about as Keith was trying to reconcile his two careers.
He noticed that his Taoist-related content was attracting more attention online than his regular tattoo content.
Then, he thought about Thailand’s Sak Yant tattoos; traditional tattoos featuring sacred designs and scriptures.
“So I was like, if the Thais can have it, why can’t we have our history?” he wondered.
With this in mind, Keith then approached his master with the idea of combining tattooing and Taoist practice.
@keith.inks She flew all the way from taiwan just for this talisman tattoo #六壬伏英舘 #shaman #fyp #sgtattoo #tattoo
His goal was not only to create a new career path, but also to showcase Chinese religious culture and the traditions of his own lineage.
However, some believe that people should not permanently tattoo a talisman onto the body because they consider it impure.
Keith disagrees with this interpretation, citing the fact that Taoist practitioners themselves can have scriptures written on different parts of their bodies during ordination and rituals.
To him, the idea that a talisman tattoo loses its spiritual “power” simply because someone has sex, for example, does not make sense.
Not everyone can get a talisman tattoo
Getting a talisman tattoo from Keith is not as simple as choosing a design from a catalogue.
Firstly, the tattoo can only be done on the upper body. Next, clients have to provide personal information such as their Chinese name and birth details.
Keith then consults his deity and asks whether that particular person is suitable to receive a talisman tattoo.
Source: andresr on Canva for illustration purposes only
For this, he uses moon blocks to seek an answer. If he does not receive the necessary approval within three tries, he turns the client away.
Besides seeking approval, he also does not offer talisman tattoos for certain purposes.
For example, Keith does not believe a tattoo intended to attract wealth makes sense because Taoist practitioners traditionally burn some wealth talismans or use them for a specific period before replacing them.
Instead, his current approach focuses more on protective talismans, which he compares to traditional amulets that devotees repeatedly bring back to temples for blessings.
A tattoo that is more than just ink
Keith told MS News that the talisman tattoo process typically takes around three to four hours.
For him, the financial aspect is secondary to whether the person genuinely believes in the deity and practice.
Ironically though, Keith cannot even give himself one of these talisman tattoos.
“I’m the only one doing it right now,” he said, explaining that it would be almost impossible for him to perform the same process on himself.
With that said, some of his own tattoos have a very different backstory.
When he was around 14 or 15 years old, Keith got Thai scriptures tattooed on his back as an act of teenage rebellion.
After becoming a Taoist shaman, he eventually asked a Thai monk to remove the blessings from the tattoo before he covered it.
Bringing Chinese mythology into tattoo culture
Becoming a shaman has also changed the type of tattoos Keith wants to create.
He says he has become much more connected to Chinese culture, from drinking Chinese tea and practising Chinese calligraphy to reading traditional Chinese texts.
He is also moving beyond the anime tattoos that made up much of his earlier work, and exploring Chinese mythology instead.
Source: theworldofchinese.com
Keith also feels it’s strange that Japanese deities and mythology can be popular tattoo subjects, while Chinese gods are sometimes considered taboo.
He now wants to be known for tattooing Chinese gods and mythological figures, rather than simply reproducing Japanese-inspired tattoo designs.
“I want to be the one that tattoos like Nezha (三太子) for example. Yeah, so I’m trying to explore that route of tackling more Chinese mythology,” he said.
Merging the two sides of his identity
For Keith, the two sides of his identity are no longer competing careers. They are becoming one.
As a tattoo artist, he says his responsibility is simply to make sure his client is happy.
However, as a shaman, he feels that he carries a much greater responsibility, with every word and action requiring more thought.
Despite the dramatic difference between the two roles, the transition can be surprisingly seamless.
He could finish tattooing a client, return to his desk to prepare talismans, and then suddenly receive a call asking him to help with a spiritual matter.
He does not need to change into traditional robes and sometimes does not even have time to change out of whatever he happens to be wearing, such as a blazer for a photo shoot.
“If there is a need for me, I’ll be there,” he said steadfastly.
For Keith, perhaps that is the most natural part of his unusual double life. There is no longer a need to choose between being a tattoo artist and a Taoist shaman.
He is both.
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Ngô Huy Toàn & Ian Zailee.
