I think a lot about tattoos whenever I go to concerts in Hawaii. On Saturday afternoon, I was cruising on the lawn at the Waikiki Shell for Kokua Fest, checking out the amazing, amusing and — occasionally — downright awful array of body art around me.

Names of loved ones, tribal art, hearts and stars, plumeria, koi, depictions of Jesus, kanji, variations of ohm, the Hawaiian Islands — you name it. It was like going to an art show where all the exhibits were “ink on flesh.”

I was 19 when I got my first tattoo. It’s a small item that I hand-drew, and which most people aren’t even aware that I have. And — I realize the irony of writing about this in this space — but personally I’m OK with keeping it that way. The tattoo was something that I did more for myself personally, not for anyone else, and I’m fine with not having it on display for the world to see.

It’s partially this reasoning, but also because I realize that there are still stigmas attached to individuals with tattoos — especially females — that I keep mine covered.

As the popularity of tattooing has grown, so have social ideas about tattoos changed. Fading is the notion that tattoos are things reserved only for prisoners or gang members. Tattooing enjoyed a resurgence in the late ’90s as more artists and celebrities were seen with “tatts” and shows like A&E’s “Inked” and TLC’s “Miami Ink” sprang up on TV.

According to a 2006 survey conducted by the American Academy of Dermatology, 36 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo. The study also found that nearly one in four Americans between 18 and 50 are tattooed. (link to the AP article about the survey) Today, tattooing has become so popular, especially among women, that I can think of only a handful of female friends who do not have one. Most of theirs are kanji or small, delicate decorations like flowers, often on the hip, waist or lower back.

If tattoos are so common, then why cover up?

For one, young people might accept their inked-up friends as the norm, but in many workplaces, tattoos are still taboo. At the restaurants I worked at in Hawaii and New York, men were required to cover sleeve tattoos and women placed Band-aids over any visible ink. Hotel workers and others in the service industry are also required to cover up. Many other professional workplaces have similar policies, and many employees in the ones that do not conceal their tattoos anyway as a matter of professionalism.

Women also face a social stigma associated with having a tattoo. Females with tattoos are unfortunately often perceived to be, well, a bit on the wild side. I’m sure there is a little of the same connotation for men, but for the nice girl who just wants a cute plumeria on her hip, it could be frustrating.

While an event like Kokua Fest might make you feel like NOT having a tatt makes you the oddball in the crowd, the culture on Bishop Street is a little different. Quarterlifers might embrace this explosion of body art, but remember: the Mid-lifer interviewing for an accounting position might not be so thrilled with that huge dragon covering your arm.

So, at least until ink-loving Quarterlifers overrun the working world, better bust out the Band-aids and concealer.

More tattoo-related sites:

US Food and Drug Administration: Information on tattoos, temporary tattoos and henna products
Nisha Ramachandran in US News and World Report: “Career Spotlight: Tattoos are showing up all over“
HanziSmatter.com: The site is “dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture” and goes through a lot of painful (but hilarious) mis-translations and wrong characters in kanji tattoos. Britney Spears is in there somewhere…

Like any growing social trend, tattooing has received its fair share of ridicule, including a skit on Saturday Night Live about a middle-aged mom with an embarrassing lower back tattoo (”Turlington’s Tattoo Remover“) and a tongue-in-cheek book, Mommy Has a Tattoo.

Photo: With some brave friends at a tattoo parlor in Shanghai. They did a beautiful job on a tattoo of a phoenix for my friend, who had spotted the image on a vase in the Shanghai Museum a few days before and brought the artists a digital photo of it.

Hi Folks –

As you probably noticed, we’ve been having some issues with a pesky survey that pops up as you try to navigate the Advertiser blog sites. The page has been disabled, but we’re still having problems — as one editor put it: it’s “like getting gum off your shoe.” Be assured that our tech guys are working as quickly as they can to fix the issue this afternoon.

In the meantime, please try to follow these instructions to the best of your ability:

If you are experiencing difficulties accessing our blogs due to the our “ZAG” survey form, please clear your browser cache and cookies and restart your browser session.

This feature has been disabled and should no longer be an issue. If you continue to see the survey popup after clearing your browser cache and cookies, please e-mail feedback@honoluluadvertiser.com and include your browser type, version and operating system information so we can continue to troubleshoot this issue for you.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope you’ll keep reading.

Happy Aloha Friday –

Kim

No, I’m not talking about posting your resume on LinkedIn. I’m talking about joining a professional organization, putting on dress clothes, going to a dinner or convention or fundraiser, shaking hands, chatting with people who might intimidate you, putting your best face forward even though you may not feel like it that day.

Networking. Lots of people hate it. They’d rather sit at home and scroll through endless lists of jobs on Monster or CareerBuilder. Essentially, no human interaction is involved with many online job search sites — you can just *click* and send in your cover letter and resume.

In my limited time spent in the post-college working world, I’ve come to realize the colossal importance of networking. I used to think that I could get a job based solely on my super-organized resume and academic prowess. But during the search for summer internships in college, I quickly discovered that neither of these meant diddly squat to future employers. There was an entire ocean of aggressive overachievers out there and I was just lost in the crowd.

The Chinese have a word, “guanxi,” a complicated social term that roughly translates to a relationship between people, often where one person can prevail upon the other to perform a service or favor, or vice versa. It’s like “having connections.” In the business world in China, it’s all about the guanxi.

It makes some people uncomfortable to think that their basis for hire can be as much about whether the hirer knows the applicant as whether the applicant’s resume is stellar.

But there’s a reason why networking exists. It seems guanxi is especially important in Hawaii, which is a pretty small town. Each local industry seems very tight, making it both easy and difficult to move between jobs in your profession.

I was thinking about this while preparing for tonight’s “College Night,” hosted by the Hawaii chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, which I’ve been a member of since returning to Hawaii after graduation, and which I believe ultimately helped me to get a job at the Advertiser. The event is a chance for college students interested in journalism to meet professionals in the media industry, talk about their careers and receive feedback on resumes and clips.

It is odd to find myself on the “professional” side and not the student side anymore. I hardly feel like I embody everything that the word “professional” connotes. Heck, I’m still psyched about having company BUSINESS CARDS.

I wish that I had seized on more opportunities to attend networking events like College Night while I was still in school. It feels good to help plan an event for people who are not too much younger than I am. And I’m excited to meet young people who are interested in journalism and eager to get into the field. Meeting people, having good conversations about something you’re passionate about — it goes both ways.

And … I’m still working on building my guanxi.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

BBC reporting that PM Gordon Brown will not attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on August 8.

President Bush is under pressure at home, most recently from presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, to skip the opening ceremonies. Congressman Neil Abercrombie has also joined a group of other House members in pushing for a hearing on a resolution calling for an Olympic boycott until China improves its human rights record.

Since winning the Olympic bid in 2001, China has come under pressure from numerous sources to address human rights before August. Protests in Tibet in the last few weeks have people focusing more and more on the idea of a boycott.

I have many more thoughts on this issue, but have to run to do a story/video. In the meantime, take a look at this site, Anti-CNN.com, which is dedicated to shaming the Western media’s coverage of the situation in Tibet. It gives a different perspective on what’s happening over there.

A New York Times article yesterday about bloggers, and the stress associated with creating and maintaining round-the-clock content on the web, had a lot of interesting observations about the 24/7 news cycle. It relates to what we’re increasingly trying to do at the Advertiser with breaking news, blogs and the 24/7 news room, where an editor must be on duty all the time, even through the night.

The story touched on the recent deaths of two tech bloggers, both of whom died from heart attacks, and other health worries from jobs that require you to become obsessed with breaking news and your computer:

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

OK, I’m not seizing this opportunity to tell you about personal stress or ask you to make a donation to the “Save the Bloggers!” fund. But I do think it’s interesting how the nature of the news room and the news cycle has changed to include nearly instantaneous information available at your fingertips, and how the need to be tethered to every piece of information happening out there has created this anxiety about “breaking news” and being in-the-know about everything.

I’ll use my job as an example: a couple of years ago, the Advertiser introduced “mobile journalists” — or “mojos” as we’re more commonly called. (This, btw, was apparently a Gannett creation.)

The idea? Instead of having everybody operate out of the news room on Kapiolani Boulevard, send several reporters out into the community to watch, listen, talk to residents and gather stories. It’s an approach that emphasizes “hyper-local” news, although we’re always looking for community stories that have broader implications for the island and the state as a whole.

The technology aspect of the job is what I think relates most to the NYT article. The mojos are given a laptop computer, a Sprint wireless card and a cell phone and sent out into our respective communities. We’re also often equipped with video cameras. I’ve written stories from Starbucks, from my car and while sitting on the cafeteria floor during neighborhood board meetings. I communicate with my editor through phone and email primarily, checking in throughout the day. While I was still getting the hang of the job, a lot of my time was spent working from home. (That’s my “office” pictured above.) I also maintain this blog and try to write a post daily.

All in all, when you think about it, it’s an exciting job. I could be stationed behind a desk somewhere stapling cover sheets to my TPS reports. Instead, I’m out in the community, driving around, talking to people and generally enjoying the beauty of the place where I grew up.

There are downsides. For one, it’s a very individualistic sort of thing, even more so than the traditional reporting gig, and you have to enjoy that. When working from home, it’s also sometimes difficult to separate work hours from non-work hours. Let’s face it — if you’re a journalist in this age, you have to keep your finger on your beat at all times. News is not a 9-to-5 gig. When two planes struck the World Trade Center towers early that Tuesday morning seven years ago, if all the journalists in Honolulu had rolled over and gone back to sleep — well, you can imagine what would have happened.

This reality is what every wide-eyed young journalist entering the field has to be aware of. The news room is not what it was five years ago, and I am sure that it will be completely different five years from now. Since joining the staff of the Advertiser, I’ve personally enjoyed learning new skills — shooting video, filing a story while out of the office, using the blog software. But it’s difficult for many who have been in the field a long time to adjust to what journalism is becoming, that is, a juggling act.

While blogging isn’t threatening to do me in anytime soon (I hope), it’s becoming an increasingly complicated world out there for journalists. And that can make anyone a little stressed out.