Japanese owners of famous ‘onsen’ hot springs soften their stance on tattoo ban to appease foreign visitors
Julian Ryall
in Tokyo

The Japan National Tourism Organisation says it is encouraging hotels and onsen operators to provide options to foreign guests with tattoos.

TOKYO: -- Operators of Japan’s much loved “onsen” hot springs – one of the highlights of any trip for many foreign visitors – are coming around to the notion that they need to provide solutions to the cultural minefield surrounding tattoos.

Skin art is still widely perceived as a mark of Japan’s “yakuza” groups and public baths and hot springs have for generations banned anyone with a tattoo from enjoying their facilities. That attitude has remained largely unchanged, despite a massive increase in the number of overseas visitors coming to Japan and the increasingly widespread trend among foreigners to have tattoos.

Those tattoos may be tribal markings, the names of loved-ones or a small and discreet rose or dolphin. In Japan, however, operators of onsen regard a fashionable butterfly or a heart in exactly the same way as the full body tattoos that the underworld use as a badge of belonging.

Full story: http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1876200/japanese-owners-famous-onsen-hot-springs-soften-their-stance

-- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST 2015-11-06

Guess that means you will never find a thai bar girl in them.

well if the option is to put a plaster over my tattoos, I'd look like the curse of the mummy. I wonder how comfortable they would be with that?

People with tattoos (not the tribal or temple ones) are looked down upon in many cultures, just like the ones with wierd piercings (again, not the tribal or the traditional nose and ear piercings in some cultures) on eyelids, tongue etc.

I'm not a big fan of tattoos, and so I approve of the "onsen's" restrictions. I do wish it would apply to Thai bars and on the street as well. Why can't people just cover the things up?