Wang Qingyuan, chairman of the China Association of Tattoo Artists. Photos by Zou Hong / China Daily

Tattoos designated social groups, such as trade associations, in the Ming and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, China Association of Tattoo Artists chairman Wang Qingyuan says.

Chinese rethink ink

Marks of ethnic identity

"It became a badge of membership," he says. "But these groups were informal and not criminal."

He recalls meeting an elderly man in Tianjin who had a tattoo of two seated gentlemen, sipping tea under a tree.

The man told Wang it was the mark of an industrial association to which he had belonged.

The ideas of tattoos as taboos resurfaced before New China's 1949 founding, when they were associated with prisoners who inked themselves.

But public perception has continued shifting from viewing tattoos as designators of deviance to socially acceptable expressions of individuality.

Wang says much has changed in the roughly two decades he has worked as a tattooist.

Dong, the celebrated artist, explains: "Technological development enables us to do more artistic designs. It's not just dragons and tigers, anymore."