Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 June 30

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 30

Christian funerals in Japan

Since Christianity is only a minor religion in Japan, I was wondering how Japanese Christians had funerals. Do they have Christian services, secular funerals, funerals with elements of Buddhism or Shinto, or a mixture of styles of some of those previously mentioned? And are most Japanese Christians cremated and buried in regular Japanese cemeteries? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:16, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course we have an article on this: Christianity in Japan. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You can have Christian services like this. Christians are cremated and buried in regular Japanese cemeteries. Oda Mari (talk) 09:01, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

retro tattoos

OK, so I get the whole 1950s retro culture style clothes, makeup, hair etc that certain ladies want to adopt, and that's cool with me. But one thing I find a bit wierd is the fetish for tattoos as being retro. I don't think any right minded respectable woman who lived in the 1950s would actually have tattoos. (I'm not sure any right minded respectful woman in the 2010s should have). Is that right, what's the history of women's tattoos? If a woman walked into a dinner party with a tattoo in 1953 what would the reaction have been?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony May (talk • contribs) 15:20, 30 June 2012

History of tattooing#Reintroduction in the Western world describes some respectable women with tattoos in the late 19th century. I don't know if that had changed by 1950. --Tango (talk) 15:29, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that women might opt for hidden tattoos in the 1950's, which would be a bit easier, as clothes covered up more back then (although calves may have been more exposed then than now). StuRat (talk) 20:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

"any right minded respectable woman who lived in the 1950s" Soapbox much? The history of policing women's gender has centred largely on "right mindedness" such as the institutionalisation of lesbians for mental illness and on respectability such as invading the home of single mothers to inspect what they have been using their genitals for. You could have readily phrased your contribution in a manner designed not to cause offence, but didn't. (The switch between "respectable" and "respectful" is particularly telling). Fifelfoo (talk) 22:34, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

People that go out of their way to be offended are going to be offended by pretty much anything, so why bother trying to appease them? It's perfectly clear that the OP is referring to the moral and cultural attitudes prevalent at the time and is not making any moral judgements of his/her own. --Tango (talk) 22:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you have misread their post, particularly where they express approval of such a culture and advocate it: "I'm not sure any right minded respectful woman in the 2010s should have" Fifelfoo (talk) 23:38, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Tattoos in the 1950s? LOL. Not a chance in my part of the world (Australia). Neither for men or women, respectable or otherwise. Sailors were the single exception. HiLo48 (talk) 22:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Male farm workers/labourers have always been a bit prone to them as well, in my experience. But they were always reasonably hideable (if that's the right word) for when the occasion demanded. These days, that's hardly possible in many cases. Tatts all up and down their arms, all up their necks. And that's just the women. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:59, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know many farm labourers in the 1950s, so you could well be right about them. I sometimes enter discussions among high school students about the tats they have just recently acquired, or are planning to get (maybe when mum let's them), and throw in the challenging question "Do you think tattoos will go out fashion at some stage?" The reaction is usually pure shock and horror at that inconceivable thought. HiLo48 (talk) 00:51, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

If a woman were to walk into a dinner party in 1953 with a visible tattoo, the likely response would be total social rejection. Especially among the middle and upper-middle classes, getting a tattoo was simply Not Done, by either men or women. --Carnildo (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Many respectable and right minded women would have had tattoos in the 1950s and long before that as well. Bornean traditional tattooing, Loss of Traditional Tattoos Tied to Islam, Christian tattooing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Category:Polynesian tattooing and traditional Inuit women tattoos. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

The only men I knew in my 1960s childhood with tattoos were my two grandfathers who were both ex-sailors. Tattooed women were a fairground attraction - see Lydia the Tattooed Lady. Alansplodge (talk) 08:12, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

At least in Denmark it was not uncommon for prostitues to have tattoos, and this was apparently an old tradition. In 1891 a Danish medical doctor published a small study with the title "About tatoos on public women [prostitutes"] (with a sample of the art here and here, quite indistinguishable from sailor tattoos it seems), and a Danish criminal psychiatrist functioning in the 1940s and 1950s was wellknown for his interest in studying the tattoos on the prostitutes that he had to make psychiatric assesments of. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:33, 1 July 2012 (UTC)