Real life Mondstadt? Mondstadt's cultural depiction
I saw today a video on YouTube about a 'real life Mondstadt' which is Mont-Saint-Michel and my thoughts were 'I hate it'. Why? Well because Mondstadt is a German influenced region/city by Mihoyo. We can see with Mondstadt of how they (a Chinese company) are depicting a German region/city of the early modern period (at least that's how I personally see Mondstadt, a German city around 1500+ so we can't really compare it to today's cities). So, we have to as well remember that it's a game and Mondstadt is fictional anyways. In this text, article, paper or whatever, I will show you a German example of a so called ‘real life Mondstadt’ and show you the German influences within Mondstadt, later I will argue about cultural depiction. Just to note, I myself am a German, through I’m from Bavaria which is in the south of Germany.
So why do people refer to Mont-Saint-Michel? Well because it's easy. Mont-Saint-Michel is very well known even to me as a German. But I personally wouldn't compare it to Mondstadt since it's only similarities are that it’s an island surrounded by a wall and a cathedral in the middle of it (which is not exactly the case with Mont-Saint-Michel since it is an abbey) plus Mont-Saint-Michel is kind of a hill itself while Mondstadt is ‘in general’ flat plus it’s not an island in a lake but in the sea. (you have to consider the ebb and flow there)
I can name you a way better ‘example’ for a real life Mondstadt which would be the old city of Lindau which is, a city (or at least the old part of it) on an island in a lake (Bodensee). So literally what Mondtstadt actually is. The only thing that we do not have in Lindau is a city surrounding wall (but they had once one) and a Cathedral (they only have a church) and houses in the right style. Well Lindau’s old city is more of a city like Mondstadt than Mont-Saint-Michel, which I would more compare to a village but well that’s just my opinion. Lindau itself today is newer considering that there was a fire back then and afterwards they just build houses in the Baroque style which is very common in Germany. On old drawings of Lindau you can actually see that they had a city surrounding wall once and it really looks similar to the Mondstadt we know.
today's old city of Lindau (Bodensee)
What German influences does Mondstadt have? (except for the name Mondstadt = moon city) Well the Cathedral could be influenced by a very famous German one, which is the one I immediately thought of when I saw the one in Mondstadt and that is the Cologne Cathedral. The houses in Mondstadt are definitely Fachwerkhäuser (half-timbered houses) and you can find this style everywhere in Germany (and Switzerland). But this architecture style is ‘rare’ (well considering where you are in Germany) since many houses where rebuild in newer styles and city walls were torn as well. Windmills by the way are not that common in Germany, at least not in the south. I think it's more common in the north (don’t forget Germany is culturally very diverse and I’m from the south) so I would not say there are no Windmills in Germany at all, there are just not as many as for example in the Netherlands.
As I said in the beginning Mondstadt is just a German influenced region/city (and a fictional one as well). What we can see in Mondstadt is the depiction of something ‘German’ by someone Chinese (in this case by those who work for Mihoyo). Liyue is culturally depicted way better than Mondstadt (in my opinion) because it’s influenced by China, which should be easy for Mihoyo as a Chinese company. This degree of cultural depiction is for me as a cultural/social anthropologist very interesting. For example, all Liyue (let’s not count Rex Lapis in this) characters have actual Chinese names while in Mondstadt only a few do have German (or names that are common in Germany) names for example Barbara, Fischl, Lisa, Klee (not really a name) and Wagner (a npc btw uses a typical German family name) and probably more but I haven’t talked with every npc yet.
I’m just glad that this ‘cultural inaccuracy’ is continued with other regions as well for example with Snezhnaya and the Fatui. Teyvat is not the real world, so we shouldn’t compare it that much or at least we should be happy that they are not that accurate with all regions (well except for Liyue) since it’s all fictional and Teyvat is its own world.
Sources: (I know Wikipedia is not a scientific good source but I’m lazy btw I looked at the German pages, plus my citation is not perfect)
Disig. Mondstadt doesn't feel based on Germany to me, more like general Europe. Am I missing something? Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/jhvy9n/mondstadt_doesnt_feel_based_on_germany_to_me_more/
Fachwerkhaus. (2020, November 19). Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachwerkhaus
Le Mont-Saint-Michel. (2020, May 29). Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mont-Saint-Michel
Liste der Windmühlen in Deutschland. (2020, November 27). Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Windm%C3%BChlen_in_Deutschland
Prasanth2399. Mondstat irl: Mont Saint-Micheal, France. Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/jyt9h3/mondstat_irl_mont_saintmicheal_france/ -> from this reddit I liked the comment of St_Phob
Windmühle. (2020, June 15). Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windm%C3%BChle
Mattjestic MultiGaming. NEW 1.2 Pets & Companions! Real Life Monstadt! OP Kaeya & Amber! | Genshin Impact. Youtube, 3 Dec. 2020, Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fGyKtF-Io&t=1s. -> this video started everything
