The presense of cultures - Sinicism (Or everything Chinese/Chinese related)

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The presense of cultures - Sinicism (Or everything Chinese/Chinese related)

(music in link for Metal Slug style brainstorming)

Oh man, I must say my expectations on this game are extremely high (as on any other game). Anyway, in cyberpunk fiction, there are always presence of multiple cultures. In cyberpunk reality (our world), there are, too.
This thread in particular is only about everything Chinese/Chinese related, because, well, you know, ehh, "China", whether we are referring to regimes, the civilization, languages or else.... there are so many things, you know.

How should Chinese stuff be presented in the game? How many Chinese things are we talking about first?

A rough list for brainstorm, inspiration and discussion:

1. Languages: Taking all varieties into account, you may say there are 8 major branches of Chinese languages - Mandarin官, Yuet粵, Hokkien/Min閩-東南西北, Hakka客家, Hsiang湘, Gan, Jin晉.
Being in the same branch does not mean they are all mutually intelligible. If taking all varieties into account, one may even say there are more than 100 Chinese languages. So.. yea.

Oh, by the way, since these languages are old, there are reconstructed Middle Chinese and Old(!) Chinese. Hmm, What would the reconstruction sound like in 2077?

2. Writings: Today, we usually say like "modern vs classical", "traditional vs simplified (simplified as governments promoted, in the PRC, Singapore, Malay, Japan)". In old days, the first distinction was always vague. Even in today, it still is. The traditional vs simplified thing is like common sense today, but in old days, it never existed.

People in ancient China would recognize two distinctions - 1. Commonly written vs less commonly written vs written for aesthetics, depending on regions, 2. super ancient "WTF is this, pictures flying around" letters vs easy to write with brushpen letters which are like (or just are) the Chinese words you see above.

And... Calligraphy!!!

3. Clothing: Actual Chinese clothing, after centuries of demise and oppression, is being revived. Future development until 2077 should be interesting.

4.



Ah, shit man. Family bullshit again. I can't think further right now. I'll leave this here for you guys.
 
While I'm sure China will be present in CP2077 we need to keep in mind the time-line and events laid out in CP2020 are cannon, and since it was written in the early 80's no one really foresaw China becoming a major world player when they did in real-life. Same with Russia is still being the Soviet Union.

Disclaimers aside, I seem to recall reading one of the top people at CDPR (I'm too lazy to look up who) spent 6 months or a year living in China so I suspect they (CDPR) have a fairly good grasp on what needs to be done to portray China in the game. But I seriously doubt any part of the major story-line in CP2077 will involve China proper. Sure, there will be Chinese people in Night City, it will probably have a Chinatown, but the kind of detail you suggest is probably beyond the scope of CP2077.

Maybe future installments (which I'm sure CDPR hopes to make) will require a more in depth portrayal of China.
 
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Suhiira;n9269971 said:
While I'm sure China will be present in CP2077 we need to keep in mind the time-line and events laid out in CP2020 are cannon



 
I don't know much (read as "close to nothing") about the CP2020 timeline and all... so I can not speak to anything like that.

But what I can point to is that: California, and San Fransisco does have fairly large amounts of Asians in general (about 15% of Californias population is Asian, and apperantly Californias Asian population is about 1/3rd of USA's entire population of Asians... and SF's population consists of 33'ish % Asian)... and the largest section of them (well into the 60-70'ish or somesuch %) do seem to have origins in China as well.

So I don't find it all that inconceivable that Night City's population might have a pretty significant culturally influencing factor being Asian, and in particular Chinese. And while that does not necessarily mean that China it's self has a direct hand in it, and it more being an Asian-American kind of an cultural influence, China it's self might still have some influencing factors in Night City partly due to a large Asian population in it (be it cultural or in some other things as well).

Some areas in Night City might even have a majority of it's population be Asians as well, where if you do not speak and/or understand something like Mandarin you might have a hard time to get by... especially if you try to listen in (possibly spy) on people who mainly speak Mandarin. Some might even be unwilling to speak to you in anything but a certain language, or a certain set of languags... and this goes for any particular section of the population, be it English speaking, Mandarin speaking, Spanish speaking, or otherwise. And in such areas I would asume that the main influencing culture there would be from where ever the majority of the population has origins from (probably mixed with North American though... seeing as Night City is in USA after all).

Of course, I don't know how much might or might not have changed from our real world to the CP2020 timeline/world, and we don't know how much things might or might not have changed since CP2020 to CP2077... but nonetheless, to me this just makes sence, and seem very logical, that this would be the case atleast when it comes to things like culture, etc.
 
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Ok, feels like continue typing the stuff now

4. Music
Literally you can find almost all genres. Stuff using traditional instruments, the oriental orchestra stuff, the western classical style, metal, rock, jazz, funk, hip hop, synthpop... and so on. Lyrics can be about everything as well.

5. Sinicism outside continental China
Japan. Korea. Vietnam. Ryukyu. Malay. Singapore. Chinatowns. Where there are Chinese stuff. However, they usually are not just the same, due to multiple factors eg. the time when Chinese stuff enter the region.

In fact, there were times when Japan and Vietnam considered themselves to be the sole legitimate ruler of all under heaven, before of after the collapse of Ming大明. Some of them were not only able to read ancient classics, but to wrote poems and oldschool calligraphy. If you google something about Imperial Japan, you can find the presence of clerical scripts - very oldschool.

6. KUNGFU 功夫
Well, there are so many schools of Kungfu, so here I'll just type about Bruce Lee李振藩/李小龍.
If you search for clips on Youtube, you can find several black-and-white films about Bruce Lee demonstrating his punches and kicks either in an unknown place, or in a Hollywood actor interview room. There have been several people trying to calculate his speed on the demonstration on the site. It's said that Bruce Lee, when just demonstrating, can attack a target in 0.1 to 0.3 second. It's way too fast for 60s/70s camera so he had to slow down in action films. If such speed can be made in the game, that'd be mindblowing. Or future techs can make attacks even faster?
 
I have no opinion on what all Chinese cultural references there should be since I know so little about the subject (and frankly, I don't care if it's this or that aspect fo the culture, if it's there and notably Chinese, that's enough). But what I do have an opinion on is that it obviously shouldn't be underlined or highlighted above other kind of cultural references. A CP version of a "Chinatown" district with some semblances of the culture that come with the picture might be just enough, just like if there was a "Little Italy" district, or what ever else.
 
Hong Kong is already cyberpunk. I've no doubt there will be a large Chinese influence on CP2077.
 
Suhiira;n9269971 said:
While I'm sure China will be present in CP2077 we need to keep in mind the time-line and events laid out in CP2020 are cannon, and since it was written in the early 80's no one really foresaw China becoming a major world player when they did in real-life. Same with Russia is still being the Soviet Union.

We should also not forget that Mike is working on Cyberpunk Red (incidentally, apparently named such before Mike was working with RED), which, if I've understood all the interviews correctly, is supposedly a new iteration of 2020. Also, Mike will handle all the canon stuff that takes place up to 2020, and from there all the way up to 2077, while RED will be in control of anything that takes place in and after 2077.

So, while we do have the 2020 canon right now, in the form of the core rules and sourcebooks...Cyberpunk Red might just retcon/change some of it.

Having said all that, Mike has only mentioned Cyberpunk Red a couple times, and as such, it could be that I've completely misunderstood what he's been saying. He mentioned it in one or more of the actual interviews, and probably in text form somewhere, as well.
 
It's possible Mike could retcon CP2020 in an update, but I think it's more probable he'll leave it as is and shoehorn "necessary" changes (the fall of the Soviet Union, China) in somewhere between 2025 (I think that's where the current time-line stops) and 2076. And that's only if he decides they're somehow necessary. Think of Cyberpunk as an alternate Earth that split off our time-line in the early 80's.
 
Suhiira;n9269971 said:
While I'm sure China will be present in CP2077 we need to keep in mind the time-line and events laid out in CP2020 are cannon, and since it was written in the early 80's no one really foresaw China becoming a major world player when they did in real-life. Same with Russia is still being the Soviet Union.



That is my main thing, make the world follow the lore and spin it into a natural alternative future world. I do not want them to try and twist the world to reflect current world events/technology/socialeconomic changes. This should be a really strange and awesome world with no connection to ours.
 
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