It was just another day in Harbin. Dylan Byrne, an Irishman there to teach English came off the street into a small shop to have his ear pierced. As he sat he started talking to Zhuo Dan Ting, a strange looking Chinese girl with a green Mohawk. He'd never seen anyone like her before; neither had most other people in Harbin. They hit it off, and now, a few years later, they've moved together to Shanghai to open a new tattoo shop.
Located at 357 Zi Zhong Lu (a five minute walk from the Huang Pi Nan Lu metro stop) the shop is small but cozy. [Ed's note: Shanghai Tattoo has moved to the Cool Docks - click here for the new address.](Check it out on www.shanghaitattoo.com) Ting's drawings - she does all the actual tattooing - line the walls. Dylan, a stocky man with a constant impish grin welcomes the customers. [Ed's note: Dylan still has an "impish grin".]
He talks fast and animately; he doesn't just answer questions, he jumps at them. He did web design in Ireland for five years before "career burnout" took him to Harbin. He learned to speak Chinese there and now he does freelance design on the side along with helping Ting run their shop. He's a man who has found happiness in an unlikely place and seems to know how lucky he is.
Ting is a bit younger than Dylan. When he says that she is "not the typical cutesy Chinese girl" it's an understatement. With her hair in a bright green Mohawk (worn down and tied into a ponytail at the back when I met her), and her lower lip pierced with three spikes that jut down nearly to her chin, it's hard not to look at her.
Hassle free ticket purchasing and delivery for Shanghai's cultural and concert events:
No comments yet
Please sign in or register to comment