Miscellaneous News

name said:

When the west creates games like Batman, Spiderman, Unchartered, God of War, the players learn to admire/worship white looking people as cool, powerful, sexy, heroic, other good traits, etc. Why? Because the characters are clearly white people doing cool stuff.

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coolgod said:

What a terrible example to support your argument. The people watching CGTN videos are already under the influence of Chinese soft power, much less the ppl who comment under them. The person commenting is Chinese, and probably inside China using a VPN to post on youtube.

Your example shows the misguided interpretation of people online appreciating Chinese culture from Genshin as an example of China's soft power, when in fact it was just Chinese people appreciating Chinese culture all along. This is the textbook definition of a circle jerk.

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If the culture you two are talking about here is bounded by the color of skin or specific clothes, then I think we have different views about what is culture.
At least in china, we differ Chinese people from others by if they think and speak in the Chinese way, not their skin or clothes. Are you guys suggesting that one who wears fancy clothes from the west or has black skin on the street, speaks and thinks in our way, and has the same common traditions and history understanding as everyone else in china, is a foreigner in Chinese culture?

Temstar said:

That "gamification of blood sport as social commentary" genre was mostly invented and popularised by Japan, but it was mostly for domestic consumption, eg: Battle Royale, Kaiji. Other countries are able to take that idea and distill the essence out of it and come up with globally popular franchise. It first happened with Hunger Game then again with Squid Game. The fact that foreigners can make a more globally popular version of their idea annoy the Japanese to no end.

GI is just like that too.

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I gave the Squid Game and Hunger Games example here for a very good reason. Consider Americans, back 10 years ago they're still very confident about themselves and their culture. When Hunger Games came out they don't worry about "oh noes the Japanese are infiltrating our culture", instead their channel their pirate ancestry and go "look at me, I'm the captain now" and just took what they liked and made it their own.

If we go further back, it's not like the Japanese invented animation, they learnt how to make it from westerners, the french in particular. Even the name "anime" might have french origin. But over the decades the Japanese took it and spent a lot time money and effort on it and made it their own thing, and now it's closely associated with Japan. And who knows, maybe back then there were Japanese too who were like "this isn't my bunraku puppet theater, what is this foreign devilry"

While you worry about anime culture diluting pure traditional Chinese culture consider a Japanese man who's worked all his life in ACG industry and he sees Akihabara like this:

How does he feel?

And if you say well none of those above look like Chinese people, how does it help Chinese soft power consider this: how many anime characters look like Japanese? Does anime help Japense soft power?

So if China is to become the regional hegemon it's high time we all acted like one. Instead of worry about not enough "Chineseness" in your anime game you should mentally think "I like what you guys have done with that aesthetics over the decades, it belongs to me now" or as we say in Chinese: 拿来吧你

Guess why I take that as an example? Because normally views CGTN gets from Peking opera videos are never bigger than 10k. Plus, if you search Peking opera instead of 京剧 in Chinese on youtube, this is the first video that shows up.

coolgod said:

Your example shows the misguided interpretation of people online appreciating Chinese culture from Genshin as an example of China's soft power, when in fact it was just Chinese people appreciating Chinese culture all along. This is the textbook definition of a circle jerk.

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name said:

Very little and that's the problem that these people don't want to admit. I'm just going by what I see at a glance. I don't play the game. Every time I try to raise the alarm they'll side with whoever brings out the best copium (usually by misrepresenting what I say) - not the most important facts, but the best cope so they don't have to face reality.

Using only video games as the example..

When the west creates games like Batman, Spiderman, Unchartered, God of War, the players learn to admire/worship white looking people as cool, powerful, sexy, heroic, other good traits, etc. Why? Because the characters are clearly white people doing cool stuff.

When East Asians create Wukong, the players see a monkey man who is powerful....but how do Chinese people benefit? They don't because Chinese people don't look like that (nor would they want to look like a monkey man)

Or When East Asians create Genshin Impact, the players see people with blonde hair and colored eyes but how do Chinese people benefit? They don't because Chinese people don't look like that. You know who benefits from Genshin Impact? White people. It's the same with white worshipping crap like the newer Final Fantasy games from Japan.

Ironically, the one game developer who actually made East Asians cool and admirable (at least from a glance) was some western game developer. Compare this to Ninja Gaiden made by a Japanese company whose face is covered up with big mask and only his GREEN eyes are visible.

Be honest with yourself.

Which game is creating soft power for East Asians really? Ghost of Tshushima or I love white people sooo muuchhh!! and I wish I was white too!! I meant, Genshin Impact

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So just my 2 cents - seeing Ghost of Tsushima doesn't make me feel any cooler, nor does seeing the above blonde cartoon girls make me want to 'love white people' as an entity (now it may make some want to love white women that resembles the above characters, rare as that may be, but that's not beneficial in any way to their group).

I think the content and subtext of these exports matter way more. Ghost of Tsushima appears to be a very western oriented type of game, from story through to gameplay. It just puts an Asian face on the same old product.

Genshin on the other hand appears to introduce some fairly entry level Chinese cultural concepts to outsiders.
If it slowly espouses and imprints our views, values and way of thought into others, then that's one point to China, as you've just pushed them incrementally closer to find common ground with China, and align in that direction.

If you're basing your commentary purely on your own personal needs, then you need to remember - not everyone has those same experiences and needs.

smug said:

I think my issue is that I don't even think it's helping Chinese soft power at all, maybe for the diaspora, but that's really most of those who seems to care about the game being Chinese or having Chinese elements.

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That alone can be regarded as win, 2nd and 3rd gen chinese diaspora seldomly visit china, if at all, their exposure to their host countries is far larger. I can only speak for Germany and a bit for french and spanish and italian Overseas Chinese zoomers and millenials, but to my knowledge genshin did kickstart alot of interest, even if only for "Liyue" and not proper China, in many 3nd gen Chinese here.

The most important thing now is to use this momentum to further deepen the bond between them and the motherland. But this should not be the solely job of mihoyo but the CPC.


Xi has alot of leverage if he can control the large pool of overseas chinese and the young ones are still malleable, would be a waste if they succumb to liberal "values".

@tygyg1111.18378

This is not about my personal needs. I'm just telling you how a lot of this stuff works.

For clarity sake, this is about soft power from media. I'm not covering any other non-media aspect.

Let's just talk about the effect of media portrayals on men from different races.

Media studies proves that negative racist stereotypes/imagery makes people feel more negatively about the members from that group (see the racist Caucasian media attacks on East Asian men as nerds, creeps, homosexuals, etc). What happens? Your average Asian man is worse off from the media attacks.

Conversely, positive stereotypes/imagery makes people feel more positively about the members from that group (eg white male glorification in media) What happens? White male worship is very common among East Asians.

People who keep celebrating Japanese anime, manga, and now Genshin Impact don't recognize why it is flawed attempt at soft power. If the characters in the media does not look like the people (in this case, East Asians) it won't give you the kind of power that whites enjoy from their soft power efforts.

The characters need to be desirable AND look like us. If they are desirable and look non-Asian then non-Asians get the benefit. If they are desirable and look like us, we benefit.

name said:

Very little and that's the problem that these people don't want to admit. I'm just going by what I see at a glance. I don't play the game. Every time I try to raise the alarm they'll side with whoever brings out the best copium (usually by misrepresenting what I say) - not the most important facts, but the best cope so they don't have to face reality.

Using only video games as the example..

When the west creates games like Batman, Spiderman, Unchartered, God of War, the players learn to admire/worship white looking people as cool, powerful, sexy, heroic, other good traits, etc. Why? Because the characters are clearly white people doing cool stuff.

When East Asians create Wukong, the players see a monkey man who is powerful....but how do Chinese people benefit? They don't because Chinese people don't look like that (nor would they want to look like a monkey man)

Or When East Asians create Genshin Impact, the players see people with blonde hair and colored eyes but how do Chinese people benefit? They don't because Chinese people don't look like that. You know who benefits from Genshin Impact? White people. It's the same with white worshipping crap like the newer Final Fantasy games from Japan.

Ironically, the one game developer who actually made East Asians cool and admirable (at least from a glance) was some western game developer. Compare this to Ninja Gaiden made by a Japanese company whose face is covered up with big mask and only his GREEN eyes are visible.

Be honest with yourself.

Which game is creating soft power for East Asians really? Ghost of Tshushima or I love white people sooo muuchhh!! and I wish I was white too!! I meant, Genshin Impact

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You would be seriously suprised how many people would spent good money on barbara worn pantyhose or jeans armpit sweat. And the number of people gets even higher if we throw Hu Tao and Yelan in the mix

Jokes aside.

Even if it doesn't generate any soft power in the west, at least it doesn't create any animosity towards China, while making Billions of Euros, of with a large part comes from american and european pockets and I can assure you in those two markets, people of asian descent are not the sole playerbase.


I do understand your concern that the overall setting of GI, even for its Liyue part, are not really Chinese and the story of GI is quite shallow in the first three acts.


But that will be corrected with subsequent releases from China, especially starting 2024 with black myth, where winds meet and the likes.


Even if chinese games arent 100% sinofocused as of now, donghua is pretty good in depicting a chinese story, lots of them play in a wuxia setting, but newer ones dont. For example Link Click plays in present day China.

Cixin Liu sci-fi novels. Probably one of the most interesting reads out there, to the point that the dark forest is considered one of the solutions to the Fermi paradox, centered in modern Chinese culture and history.

name said:

This is not about my personal needs. I'm just telling you how a lot of this stuff works.

For clarity sake, this is about soft power from media. I'm not covering any other non-media aspect.

Let's just talk about the effect of media portrayals on men from different races.

Media studies proves that negative racist stereotypes/imagery makes people feel more negatively about the members from that group (see the racist Caucasian media attacks on East Asian men as nerds, creeps, homosexuals, etc). What happens? Your average Asian man is worse off from the media attacks.

Conversely, positive stereotypes/imagery makes people feel more positively about the members from that group (eg white male glorification in media) What happens? White male worship is very common among East Asians.

People who keep celebrating Japanese anime, manga, and now Genshin Impact don't recognize why it is flawed attempt at soft power. If the characters in the media does not look like the people (in this case, East Asians) it won't give you the kind of power that whites enjoy from their soft power efforts.

The characters need to be desirable AND look like us. If they are desirable and look non-Asian then non-Asians get the benefit. If they are desirable and look like us, we benefit.

Click to expand...

What you said is true, and there is growing awareness of this, however, as others have said, things need to be taken one step at a time.
One incremental gain is still a gain (it doesn't make things worse), and Chinese tv & film are slowly moving in this direction.
Overseas (non Asian countries) there is an organic movement in this direction (cool to diss white foods, boring culture, etc). You even see this in porn now, with certain genres.
So patience, you'll likely see what you want in your lifetime.

tygyg1111 said:

hings need to be taken one step at a time.
So patience, you'll likely see what you want in your lifetime.

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Well, I hope they see it. My experiences on this forum, where I assume most are more militant and more aware, has been extremely disappointing. Every time I try to bring up information, I get attacked.

I need to reiterate for anyone reading. There is no need for patience. This is not a hard subject like semiconductors.

The basic principles of soft power (but more broadly psychological warfare) can be learned over a summer from publicly available books. I did. There's no need to take baby steps. There's no need to promote non-Asians in our media, write cringe-inducing dialog in movies, cast unflattering talent, or smash our heads into a brick wall trying to export boring dramas overseas, wasting money to fund white male power fantasies, etc. These are all super dumb choices that can end instantly if the people in charge would stop goofing off.

The vast majority of movies that sell well overseas are not high brow movies that take a lifetime of wisdom to write. They are mostly fun but derivative popcorn films with spectacle and strong aesthetics. You can follow templates like the hero's journey for this.

Even if all Chinese were terrible script writers, we can just pay a top talent to write a script for us. Seriously, we need to stop with the excuses and face reality.