Great Wall's "First Pass Under Heaven" (Qinhuangdao, China)

Last week I posted some pictures of the Great Wall at Jiaoshan 角山, in Qinhuangdao 秦皇岛, China.  I have more Great Wall photos from another location, also in Qinhuangdao. This one is called "First Pass Under Heaven" (天下第一关 tiān xià dì yī guān) because it's the first main gate along the Great Wall, or something like that.

So this first picture is the gate itself. At the top you can see the characters 天下第一关, written right-to-left because that's how ancient Chinese is written (in our everyday modern lives it's left-to-right like English though). Also you may notice the 关 looks a bit different because it's traditional Chinese rather than simplified. Mainland China uses simplified characters- the switch was made about 50 years ago or so. Ancient stuff is in traditional characters though. Also Taiwan uses traditional characters.

 So then you can climb up the stairs to walk on the Great Wall.

You can't go past this point; it's blocked off.

Ancient Chinese building. The photo kind of makes it look like a restroom but it's not, lololol.

Umm for some reason they think carving stuff into the bricks is called "depicting"? idk

All over the wall you see people have been, ahem, depicting.

So that's the end of my Great Wall photos (for now~ haha, check back next week, there will be more) but there's one more interesting thing I want to show you from Qinhuangdao:

This sign has Chinese, Russian, and English. Very interesting, because typically signs in China just have Chinese and English. Seems like there are a lot of Russian people in Qinhuangdao though. A lot of Chinese people I met there asked me if I'm Russian.

Like, in general in China, 90% of the Chinese people who guess/assume where I'm from think I'm Russian. I have no idea why. But in Qinhuangdao, it was EVEN MORE. I even met one friendly Chinese woman on the bus who asked, in English, "Do you speak English?" and I was SO CONFUSED because typically Chinese people just assume I speak English because I'm white- I thought she was trying to ask if I speak Chinese but she just said the word "English" accidentally, but then I was like "yes" and she said "oh, a little bit?" and then I realized no she seriously thinks I'm Russian and probably a lot of Russian people here don't speak English, wow this is way different than what random strangers assume about me in other places in China.

So that was interesting. I was only in Qinhuangdao for a few days and didn't have anyone to tell me the basics of what kind of place it is, so I had to feel it out on my own. People there were more friendly than people in Shanghai- I guess in smaller cities people are friendly to strangers and in bigger cities people are rude, that's how it basically works, right?

Also Shanghai is so international, which makes it a great place to live, but I hate going to the touristy areas alone as a white person because there are always people on the street trying to sell their overpriced crap, targeting me because I'm white. In Qinhuangdao, I didn't feel that way though. Actually, a few of the taxi drivers I met ended up being really helpful- like one of them said he would come back later if I needed a ride back to the city, because he was driving me to Jiaoshan which is really far from the city and he said it would be hard for me to get a taxi to come back- and guess what, I ended up calling him to bring me back later and the price was reasonable and everything worked out well. I was very suspicious because typically if you're a white person at a tourist site and some stranger offers you some "great deal" it's not actually a great deal, it's actually some overpriced crap you don't need. But maybe because Qinhuangdao isn't a huge tourist destination for clueless white people, they don't have that mentality. So. Worked out well for me.

And it's a good reminder of how every city in China is different. I live in Shanghai, and Shanghai has a certain culture, and other cities in China have their own culture.

Anyway, more pictures of the Great Wall will be posted next week! I love the Great Wall so much~ it's great~

Photos from Qinhuangdao 秦皇岛:
Great Wall at Jiaoshan 
First Pass Under Heaven
Laolongtou (starting point of Great Wall)

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