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Symbol · symbol_service_on_china_station

Service on a China Station

A RECORD-OF-SERVICE meaning: the motif states that its wearer has served on a China station. Attested by the National Maritime Museum.
Thin
Medium confidenceresearched

1 attested1 source · T1

Registry entry only

The corpus has no enrichment row for this concept (symbols), so it carries its label, description, aliases and provenance and nothing further. No visual traits or cautions are recorded — not because they failed to load, but because that data does not exist in the corpus.

Provenance

1 resolved

  • Facts about tattoos (opens in a new tab)

    Tier 1

    Royal Museums Greenwich

    National Maritime Museum page. Verbatim: the word 'tattoo' is "derived from the Tahitian word 'tatau', meaning to mark"; a pig and a rooster tattooed on the feet were "said to protect a seaman from drowning"; a full-rigged ship, an anchor, a dragon and a shellback turtle each record a specific voyage or crossing. Establishes protective (apotropaic) intent inside the tattoo domain.

    museum · retrieved 2026-08-28

Related concepts

1 link

Can symbolize · 1

  • ← incomingDragonMotifAttested
    strength 0.75researched

    BRITISH NAVAL CONTEXT, entirely unrelated to the Japanese edge above. National Maritime Museum, verbatim: "A dragon denotes that the bearer has served on a China station". The same drawn shape, two meanings that share nothing.