Hey, so uh.
I bought a sword.
Not bad!
I still kinda got it?
I use to do wushu in college, I even brought out my old feiyues for this, let's go.
I'll be honest. Uh, the real reason I am picking up a sword and getting
back into wushu after all these years is because I'm trying to impress a girl.
Her name is Li Sushang (laughs)
She's the latest Valkyrie released with Honkai impact 3rd, and her Jade Knight battlesuit is gorgeous.
I'm here today to talk y'all through some of the traditional Chinese influences that we
see in her design, as well as the interesting, sort of Eastern-Western fusion and modern-traditional
fusions that we see in the design as well. So without further ado, let's jump into it!
Okay that was really bad. That was really bad. Close your eyes.
First off, before we dive deeper, I am going to be referencing some notes that the game devs
themselves have already posted on the Honkai Impact 3rd YouTube channel in their video
about Li Sushang's Jade Knight battlesuit, but I specifically want to be diving deeper on the
Chinese cultural elements that we're seeing in her outfit design, which I think are just truly
gorgeous, so we're gonna tease out some of those details, maybe you'll learn some Chinese phrases or two,
and I think it'll be a fun experience for all of us. I also want to pause and thank
Honkai Impact 3rd for sponsoring this video! Thank you very much for looping me in to do this, I thought
it was such a great idea when they approached me, they were like, "do you want to do an outfit analysis
for Li Sushang?" I'm like, "sign me up, let's go!!" Anyways, first things first, I think the big obvious thing
that you see in her outfit right off the bat is this white and blue kind of color scheme that she
has going on, right? Is anyone familiar with this like white and blue style that you often see in
porcelain, for example? Especially in Chinese porcelain? So just to give you all an example,
this is a style of porcelain that in Chinese is called "qing hua ci" and in English we usually refer to
it as "blue and white porcelain," it's, it's a very literal translation (laughs) and this is a pattern that,
in the modern Chinese cultural consciousness, has really become like a standard symbol of
"Chineseness." I really don't know how else to put that. One of my favorite demonstrations of how
this kind of qinghuaci pattern has been worked into kind of the popular consciousness of what is
beautiful is in Guo Pei's work, actually. For those of you don't know, she's a really really famous
couture designer. She famously designed a set of gowns using this kind of
qinghuaci pattern. It's just gorgeous, like it's kind of outlandish and weird and otherworldly, but
I also just feel like it embodies that beautiful detailing of qinghuaci and yet the simplicity of
the white and the blue. It's the type of pattern that really translates across different artistic
mediums... media? In Li Sushang's Jade Knight battlesuit, where we see this the most is along
the right edge of her dress, right under the bodice kind of area, where you're seeing that wave like
almost cloud-like or cedar-like detailing, is what you'll see in a lot of Chinese paintings,
for example. Those are the shapes that are evoked in the way it trails down the side, and also
in, I think, the fades of the blue, that there are multiple shades of it. It's really that aspect of
it that gives it a qinghuaci appearance, and I love seeing it. I love seeing it on her, it looks so good!
The next thing I want to point out is actually the jade pieces that she's wearing. She has a few,
there's one at her throat, one on her, like, left thigh on a garter-like thing, and then one on the
right side of her torso, alongside some tassels and knots and whatnot. It's obvious, I think, to
a certain almost stereotypical kind of point that jade is a very Chinese thing, however I did want to
take this opportunity to learn a little bit more about, like, what jade means, actually, in Chinese
culture. Like, does it symbolize anything? I'm about to drop a bunch of knowledge on y'all okay?
Get your notebooks out, are you ready?
When I was a kid, I had a tiny little jade zodiac thing. So I'm, I'm a pig.
I had a little jade zodiac Pig. It was like a little necklace that I would wear for a little
while, but my parents have kept it over all these years. Apparently these are actually pretty high
quality jades? I don't actually know the rules of how you like, appraise jade and its quality, but I
was told by my parents that these are pretty high quality, apparently. Part of it is in how they sound,
so let me give you all a bit of ASMR. I bring these out just to make the point that jade pendants are
sort of genderless, like people of all genders wear them in different ways. Sometimes it's
a necklace, sometimes it's like a little bracelet, there's actually a common design you may have
seen that's like this kind of a circular bangle. The idea that I found most interesting about jade
though was this idea that it kind of takes on the essence and the character of the person that wears it.
So for example, if I were to wear a bangle like this every day, or if I just wore it
often, the idea is that it would take on a lot of my characteristics and my essence. To make a really
crass comparison, it's sort of like when leather or a cast iron skillet gets seasoned over time,
and it's supposed to be, like, better, right? These are things that take on, quite literally, uh, the
elements of the world around them and incorporate them into their bodies. I really don't know how
to say that more elegantly, I'm sorry. That's a really uncomfortable way to put it. More elegantly,
I've talked a lot about my, like, my teapots, my clay teapots. Those are porous, right? You're supposed to
only use one type of teapot for one type of tea because it takes on the qualities of that
tea, because it's porous. It's kind of a similar idea with these jade pieces, is that they take on
your character and your qualities, and the jade reflects its owner in many ways. So this is also
the reason why you're gonna find that most Chinese people are really uncomfortable buying jade pieces
that are used. Like I wouldn't roll up to like an antique store or a secondhand thrift shop or
something and buy a jade piece. I don't know, maybe it's like a serial killer, like I wouldn't know!
Long story short, every jade, just by virtue of you wearing it, kind of becomes uniquely yours in many
ways, so there's like a very special feeling of, like, personalized ownership, and also cleanliness,
and good luck, and fortune, kind of all baked into one stone, which I think is very interesting.
And it's nice to finally get an explanation for why jade is such an important type of Chinese
cultural item. So now I feel like I can really properly appreciate these little piggy jades
that I had before, and I was just kind of wearing out of, I don't know, obligation or habit, but now,
now they feel very personal to me in a really nice way. The thing about Li Sushang's jades that
I really like, though, is that they glow blue. Jade kind of has a range of colors, right? They
go anywhere from like a green hue to a blue hue, to like an almost white, like creamy type hue.
This level of blue glowiness that we have on her, that's obviously not like a natural jade, and
so I think it brings on some interesting points about her entire battlesuit being the concept
of like the harmony of the past, as well as the future. That we have like cybernetic elements like
a blue glowing jade, along with the jade pendant itself being a very traditional concept. The true
beauty of this battlesuit, to me at least, is that combination of traditional and modern.
So we've talked a lot about how the battle suit has like, the white and the blues, the jade pieces, but
there is one highlight color that we see here that I haven't talked about yet, and that's the red.
The red really stands out against the blue and the white, right? You may have also noticed that there
are red strings here, and specifically on her bodice, those are red strings as well, but there
were red strings on the pendants that I showed you, for example, and if you had a sharp eye when I was
flourishing my sword earlier, that also had a red tassel attached to it. I feel like most people are
aware of the fact that in Chinese culture, the red string is a symbol of something that wards evil
and brings good fortune, right? Like for example I actually begged this one off my mom also while I
was grilling her, because I was like, "Mom, I have to make a video for Honkai Impact 3rd, where I have to
talk about Chinese culture, can you make sure I'm not clowning myself?" My brother was like, "You're
making mom do unpaid labor?" and I was like "I'll buy her a nice coffee." So I actually stole this,
basically, off my Mom. This is a bracelet she wore during her zodiac birth year, and I don't mean the
year she was born, but the Zodiac year she was born. So for example, I was born in the year of the pig.
Every 12 years, the zodiac turns a full cycle, and so every 12 years, it is once again the year of the
pig. A lot of people assume that when your zodiac year shows up, we call it the "ben ming nian," so the year
of the zodiac, like, animal that you were born. A lot of people think that's like a good thing. You would
think it's good luck, but actually, every turn of the cycle brings you a year of bad luck. So during
your zodiac year, I don't know if anyone else had this experience getting raised by Chinese parents,
but my parents were always like, "make sure you wear a lot of red this year." So the red string is a
symbol, as I said earlier, of something that wards off evil and brings you good luck. So this is the
kind of thing you would wear to counteract the bad juju. I think any anime fans here will also be very
familiar with the concept of like, the red string of fate, right? The idea that this this is, there's
a string tying you to another person somewhere in this world, and you all are soul mates, and you're
fated to meet. This concept of a red string of fate also exists in the Chinese mythology and
cultural consciousness, to the point where actually in ancient Chinese weddings, if you've ever watched
like a Chinese historical drama, um, you probably have seen this. The bride is walked in with the
groom, and they are joined by this literal red sash ribbon thing, with like a big bow in
the center. This is the literal visualization of the red string that tied the bride and the groom
together. I also think there's a little bit of this more generalized notion that it's not only like a
string of love, but also in general, it implies this sort of, fate, destiny type energy right? And
I think that, especially when it comes to Honkai Impact, that that's very very relevant, because so
much of this game and its story, and again I'm not that deep in, but I can kind of guess where
this is going, in many ways I feel like a common running theme in Honkai Impact, is about fate,
and destiny, and whether it's something that is prescribed to you, or if it's something you can
change. Sorry I did just watch Himiko, um, you know. Still processing a little bit. I think that that
red string of fate, the "fate" concept there is particularly relevant in the Honkai sphere, so
I do want to draw attention to that fact, that it's specifically a red string, that is sort of almost
binding Li Sushang in this battlesuit. Finally, when it comes to Chinese Beauties, in Chinese poetry when
you describe someone, especially a woman, as being beautiful, you always use elements of nature, so
it's always like, weeping willows and like, flying cranes, and sweeping clouds, right? Like this is
how we describe beauty in the, in the way that I guess Chinese culture values natural beauty,
they've always compared feminine beauty with the natural world. That's been like an ongoing kind of
trend, and in this case there's absolutely, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that you can find nature
elements all over her design, and in particular, I was talking to the Honkai team, because they're
sponsoring this video, and I was like, "is there anything in her character design that you want
to make sure I don't miss?" and they were like, "Oh, there's actually one phrase in Chinese
that we use to describe feminine beauty, that we think really encapsulates Li Sushang's character
in many ways, and her beauty of course," and so that phrase, you guys ready? It's a little bit long, it's--
I forgot. Hold on, let me pull up the notes; okay I got it, I got it, ready? The phrase is
沉鱼落雁(Chen Yu Luo Yan), 闭月羞花(Bi Yue Xiu Hua)
The literal translation of this phrase is "the fish are sinking, the geese are falling, the Moon
is hiding, and the flowers are ashamed." Which I know sounds just crazy, but hear me out okay? So it's,
it's an eight word phrase, and it breaks down into, kind of like, four two-word parts. There's a sort of
a, you know, a tradition of telling the story of these, like, four legendary Chinese Beauties, and
so each of these two characters tells, actually, the story of one of these four Chinese Beauties.
I'm not gonna tell the full stories, nor do I know the full stories, to be fully honest. But I am going
to elaborate a little bit beyond the very crude, literal translation I gave y'all just now. So 沉鱼落雁 would
be like, the fish are, essentially, this, this woman is so beautiful that the fish sink away from the
surface of the water, and the geese are falling out of the sky, in like, shock and awe at this woman's
beauty. The moon is hiding its face, and the flowers are sort of like, shy and ashamed because
their beauty could never match to this woman's, right? So that's basically like, you are so
beautiful, you put nature to shame. This was brought up in the context of all of the nature elements
that are worked into her outfit, so let's take a look at those, okay? The most obvious ones are
actually in her hair accessories, so if you look at the shape of these things, if you've ever seen like,
a Chinese painting that sort of celebrates the way, like, mist weaves around a cedar tree, that's
essentially this like, wavy pattern that goes along the back, like the center of the back of her head.
That is the clouds, and also the fog, and the cedars, that's the shape that it's evoking. These
feather-like, leaf-like things around here, they are meant to be feathers and leaves. And then I
think the interesting things about the danglies coming out of the centers of the buns; those are
kind of like, if you think of like, wisteria or like dangling vines? That's kind of the image
that they evoke. In general, this is a very, like, nature element heavy accessory design. Also, beyond
that, this is a yin yang symbol. Can you see it? I'll like, superimpose it in the edit so you can really
get a good look at it. In Chinese, that's actually called a "taijitu." We're not gonna go into the
depth of the meaning of the taijitu today. Overall the yin yang symbol, or the taijitu, basically
expresses the interconnected nature of the natural world. So everything flows into everything else, and
we are all part of this greater natural order, is kind of the concept of the yin yang sign, or the
taijitu as we call it in Chinese. There are a few other points of actually Western influences
that I want to touch on also. So the Schicksal had a heavy hand in the construction of this, right?
Otto personally designed and gifted this battlesuit as a, as a final gift to Li Sushang, so his hand is
in this, and it definitely shows in the design. You can really see the Western influences in
particular in the crosses, which are sort of in a combination, like, Eastern and Western fusion cross
design. I just want to point this out in the sense that I think it's really pertinent, and for me, as
someone who loves, you know, fusion and cultural crossovers, I love seeing Eastern and Western
blended influences in a design of a battlesuit that is also very, sort of, inherently Chinese at
its core. Especially for a character like Li Sushang, and again I don't know that much about her backstory, but I
know she was like, cryo frozen, basically, for hundreds of years, and she's emerged now into this,
like, modern world, so totally different from the world that she fell asleep in. Tthe Western
and Eastern fusion, the modern and traditional fusions, this is where I think the battlesuit's
design truly shines, and I think it brings life to her character, and extra dimensions to
her character, that I really appreciate. And I can't wait; I don't know, like, seeing characters like this
come out, I'm like "oh I need to be going faster through this game than I currently am," because I've
been stalled at post chapter 9 for god knows how long. I gotta get back on it. I'm going to, I'm going
to get back on it. The way these fusion elements captivate me, I think it comes partially from the
fact also, that like, I am Chinese diaspora. We've been raised in a culture that is different from
the one that our parents were raised in. I often feel very disconnected from both of the cultures
that I should be calling home, so seeing them kind of come together in this battlesuit is magical
in many ways. I just love seeing, especially in, in popular culture, in modern media, seeing these
kinds of elements come together to be celebrated; joyfully infused Western elements into a very
Eastern design. When you look at this outfit, that is undoubtedly, like, a futuristic sci-fi battlesuit
in the style of Honkai battlesuits. It's not, you know, just a traditional hanfu or qipao.
Like her crossed collar for example, that's not a qipao collar, and yet the general shape of
it evokes so many traditional Chinese cultural elements. Just like how watching Yunjin take the stage
for the first time really made me cry, seeing this design makes me excited to see what HoYoverse
still has in store for us when it comes to this fusion approach that they're taking. I hope this
was an interesting, informative video. I certainly learned a lot while researching for it, and thank
you so much again to Honkai Impact 3rd for sponsoring this video. This collaboration
was such a great opportunity for me to explore some Chinese cultural background and history.
I really got to, you know, monopolize my parents' time, and pick their brains, and hear about their
childhoods, and like, what they knew about their own culture, which it turns out, even they had
to go off and do research, right? Like in a way, it was kind of affirming. And this kind of
an opportunity to have those intergenerational conversations where we're both learning, actually,
I feel like it was an invaluable opportunity. As always, whether it's morning, afternoon, or
evening, have a wonderful time of day. I am still a new Honkai player, so if there is
like, lore relevance here that I missed, put it in the comments, let me know, uh, tag your spoilers! (laughs)
Have a great time, enjoy this battlesuit, enjoy Honkai Impact 3rd, I will see you all around. Buh-bye!