Lock charm

However, imports from Japan and Spanish America (through the Manilla galleons) during the Ming dynasty allowed the charm's popularity to grow.

[11][12] Other plants depicted on Chinese lock charms include plum blossoms, which are associated with the five blessings, the peony, which is associated with wealth and honour, or lotus flowers which have two different names in Mandarin Chinese, namely "蓮花" (lián huā) and "荷花" (hé huā), the first character of the former can be used as a homophonic pun with the word "continuous" (連, lián) while the latter could be used to represent the word "harmony" (和, hé) creating a visual pun for "continuous harmony" (連和, lián hé).

[13][11] Another commonly found theme on Chinese lock charms are the Sanguang (三光) which are a symbol of good luck and could be translated as the "three lights", these include the sun (日), the moon (月), and the stars (星);[11] the sun and moon may be represented with either Chinese characters while stars are often displayed with symbols such as dots.

[11] Other inscriptions could be used to express a desire for achieving a high rank through the imperial examination system such as zhuàng yuán jí dì (狀元及第, "the first rank at the examination for the Hanlin Academy"), longevity with the inscription cháng mìng bǎi suì (長命百歲, "long life of 100 years"), or a wish for stability with tiān cháng dì jiǔ (天长地久, "as eternal and unchanging as the universe").

[11] Some lock charms feature inscriptions that refer to famous mountains in China such as jiǔ huá míng shān (九華名山, "the famous Mount Jiuhua") and dà máo shān (大茅山, "the great Maoshan") while the names of the geographical regions where these mountains are located may also be displayed on the charm.

[11] Families that donated cash coins for the lock charm were expressing a vested interest in the child being secure.