Shenhua is a ghost

[drunkensailor]

this is a good read and one should simply read upon chinese and asian ways of believing in reincarnation and "memories" baby's or children even have of these events and implement them on how shenhua is and perhaps even more gifted.

[Giorgio]

My previous posts on the subject:

• viewtopic.php?f=4&t=47245#p1078031
• viewtopic.php?f=4&t=47245&start=15#p1078707

A Shenmue 500k user dug up those meanings of Shen Hua's name. I will highlight the most interesting:

神化
shén huà
to make divine
apotheosis

化身
huà shēn
incarnation
reincarnation
embodiment (of abstract idea)
personification

[BlueMue]

Interesting stuff. This can't be a coincidence, it's just too fitting. Even though the game already kind of established that Shenhua is supposed to mean something like "The Shenmue Trees Flower".

[Axm]

Those are the wrong characters for her name, though. And the tones are wrong. Try 莎花(sha1 hua1) instead.

[Giorgio]

A bit irrelevant with the subject, but somehow relevant with a post I made a while back,...

[...]Whatever does happen, I hope the series doesn't completely jump the shark and keeps magic as an amazing mystical element that you rarely see throughout the story. The floodgates are open for magical stuff to happen of course, but I still believe it can be handled well enough to feel somewhat grounded within the game's universe.

Yu Suzuki incorporates Gabriel García Márquez's concept of "Magical Realism", so you'll see e.g. Shen Hua's powers as an everyday way of acting, yet fantastical.

...a video that does an analysis about Shenmue that I haven't seen before:

phpBB [video]

I suggest you to start it at 2:08. - Especially, I haven't heard before about the "Wuxia" and "Costumbrismo" terms.

[Interesting video (at least as a motive to research the validity/relativity of the points/elements/terms presented in it, later - after watching it - on your own), although the humour and the general mocking (which has been stalled after all these years) attitude towards some elements of Shenmue, is quite distasteful sometimes.]

[Himuro]

Pretty positive that her family has done this for the emperor in the past, and now because there's no emperor, they just protect their stuff and use the caverns for other things. It's similar to my town and oil. My hometown is a hallmark and very important town for oil production. No longer, but it still carries that pride and even used to have a water fountain where oil used to be drilled. Because there is no longer an emperor to demand the mirrors be made does not mean the family who made mirrors as their craft and family tradition (remember this is Asia and tradition and family are important) decided to stop making mirrors simply because the emperor stopped asking for them. Logic dictates that like any family business or craft, they'll still keep doing it, if only to make use of the crystals in the caves for sale.

the most likely reasoning is that the mirrors are antiques from Guilin and Shenhua is merely an example of someone whose ancestors who have passed down making the mirrors through the ages.

Or, she's a ghost.