China Exclusive: Scarred for life: a father's tattoo of love

While many people have tattoos to hide their scars, in solidarity with his sick son, one Chinese father has had a tattoo created in the image of a scar.

The father now has a large tattoo of a vertical scar on his chest, the same place his two-year-old son has an actual scar caused by two operations he needed due to congenital heart disease. Photographs of the tatoo have gone viral on Chinese social media, being reposted over 30,000 times on Weibo, a Twitter-like service.

"The tattoo is an encouragement, a gesture that I'm with him. When he grows up, I will explain how his scar came to be. I will tell him 'this means you are a brave boy,'" said the father Li Xiang (a pseudonym), 32, who lives in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Li recalled a heart-breaking moment, three days after his son's second operation in early May.

"He had tubes piercing his body. His feet and hands were tied up, and he cried while struggling to hold my hand," Li said.

"The boy now needs a third surgery or he will be at risk of a sudden onset of the disease."

Li wanted to find his own way to accompany his son through the pain and help boost the boy's future self-confidence. Inspired by a movie in which a mother shaved her head to support her daughter who had cancer, he decided on the tattoo.

On Aug. 24, Li had the first tattoo of his life, a red scar 10-centimeters long and 2-centimeters wide at a local tattoo shop.

The shopkeeper Guo Sicen repeatedly told him the pattern would look bad and getting tattooed on the chest would be extremely painful, "like being cut by a knife."

Without hesitation, he took out his phone and showed me photos of his son's scar that he had taken when the boy was asleep, said Guo, who posted pictures of Li's tattoo on her Weibo account.

"I believe any parent in my situation would do anything to minimize the impact on their kid, just in different ways," said Li.

Li's wife was also moved my her husband's gesture.

"He's not a man who is good with sweet words, but he's a patient dad," she said.

Social media users in China were also full of praise.

"Fathers are not always great people. But they always try to be the hero for their kids," said a netizen.

Initially, Li was hesitant to be interviewed, concerned about his son's privacy, and worried that some kindergartens may reject children with congenital heart disease. But finally, under condition of anonymity, he decided to speak out in a bid to "help spread awareness for children suffering this disease and draw attention to their families in need of financial assistance." Endi