China— Tattoo scenes & cities

In far north-western Yunnan, women of the Dulong people wore a tattoo on the face, which earned them the nickname of the "tattooed tribe". According to the GoKunming website, girls were tattooed around puberty so that raiding tribes would not want to abduct them. Other explanations, reported by the local police, point to beauty, the passage to adulthood or clan identity.

Beijing banned the practice: a photo report made in 2016 placed the ban about seventy years earlier. A woman tattooed at 21 despite the ban, because her father feared she could be taken away, was with her cousin the last in the valley to receive the marks. In 2026, the Global Times still counted eight elderly women with tattooed faces.