Snippets of Jinan.

Snippets of Jinan. Shandong Province, China.

July 2009.

The concrete jungle of Jinan lies five hours south of Beijing. That’s a comparatively swift three hours if you treat yourself to the high-speed bullet train. As the capital of Shandong Province (slightly larger than Greece), the city is home to nine million people. I arrived by train from the port city of Tianjin where I’d spent a few days kicking off what would become a one-month stretch of cross country travel.

Photo courtesy of Happy Lydia.

The journey took around ninety minutes. This time, instead of boisterous school kids, I found myself sat opposite a silent, stony-faced old man. Which I must say I didn’t mind at all, because while travelling in China one soon learns to gratefully accept any quiet moments as they come.

Jinan may be a monster city but back in 2009 it didn’t attract many international tourists. Rather, it was (and is even more so now) a major business hub with a reputation for manufacturing steel, cars and pharmaceuticals.

Moreover, it is a significant trading centre for agricultural goods, including cotton, peanuts and tobacco. Oh, and there’s an ever-blossoming industrial development zone with a focus on IT and electronics.

Snippets of Jinan.

As a result, the city is flooded with business hotels, many of which offer excellent rates. Literally, there were not enough men with briefcases to fill all the available rooms. So after slumming it a bit in Beijing and Tianjin, I was over the moon to snap up a spacious ensuite double room in a central location.

A chain hotel with branches all over China, I will always look back on The Green Tree Inn fondly. Especially the friendly manager, who took an interest in where I was going and always offered sound advice. We even exchanged a few emails after I’d left the city.

So here’s the deal. The only reason I had actually come to Jinan was as a launchpad to Zhujiayu, a tiny isolated village acclaimed for its preservation of Ming and Qing Dynasty homes. Nevertheless, I decided to ignore all the online advice from other travellers, who bullishly claimed that Jinan was “an industrial eyesore” where there was “nothing to do”.

Photo courtesy of Xiehechaotian.

However, what none of these people had revealed was that in China Jinan is celebrated as The City of Springs, a nod to the fact that there are no less than 72 artesian springs located across its urban sprawl. Furthermore, many of these springs sit in fabulous landscaped parks where locals regularly come to escape the relentless grind of metal and smoke.

Snippets of Jinan.

Photo courtesy of Ucabunx. 

Hence I thought what the heck, let’s spend a few days getting a feel for Jinan either side of my excursion to the time warp village. Keen to see a few of its famous springs, I paid a visit to one of its most popular spots: Five Dragon Pool Park.

Photo courtesy of Qing 2003.

The park was gorgeous and massive with lush green lawns and traditional Chinese pavilions. And of course there was the goldfish-inhabited pool itself, said to be the deepest circulating artesian spring in Jinan. The atmosphere meanwhile was positively celebratory, with folk picnicking, fishing and splashing each other in order to cool off from the roasting summer temps. 

Photo courtesy of Rolfmueller.

Five Dragon Pool Park opened in 1985, though the spring’s backstory dates back over 1200 years to the Tang Dynasty. According to legend, the pool first formed after a torrential downpour on the site of a residence belonging to the legendary General Qin Shubao. As the story goes, the general’s home got swallowed up in the flood.

I also spent some time at Baotu Spring Park, which was absolutely teeming with people. The water here originates from a karst aquifer under the city. If anything, this spring is even more revered than the one at Five Dragon Pool Park. Chiefly due to the fact that it is expressly mentioned in The Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the five classics of ancient Chinese literature.

Baotu Spring Park.

In both spring parks I found myself the subject of much attention. In fact, there were plenty of Chinese folk who seemed more interested in me than the beauty of their immediate surroundings.

Before long I’d lost count of the people who had stopped to say hello. And the number of parents who’d pushed their terrified children in front of me, ordering them to practice their English with the lǎowài (foreigner).

Like all good Chinese cities Jinan has its own mountain, Thousand Buddha Park. Developed and nurtured by numerous ancient emperors going as far back as 2000 years, this stunning mountain park features temples, gardens, sculptures and gates, in addition to… yes… around a thousand buddhas! Some of them are freestanding (or sitting) constructs, while others have been carved into the rock of the mountain itself.

It breaks my heart to think that just about all the photos I took climbing this amazing mountain got lost in the great hard drive drop of 2009. But at least I have this one grainy shot of me sitting at the top. Most of that graininess is the loss of quality, some of it is down to the smog.

Snippets of Jinan.

The online Jinan-dismissers may have gotten their “nothing to do” verdict wrong, but they admittedly had a point regarding the city’s overall lack of visual appeal. Indeed much of it was a charmless concrete jungle where scaffolding, cement mixers, cranes and giant trucks spitting up dust were never more than a few metres away.

And yet, during the many kilometres I covered on foot, there were no less than three genuinely lovely encounters that have stayed with me over the years.

One evening I came across an exceptionally friendly husband and wife playing badminton outside their apartment block. They were incredibly excited to meet me, so much so that the lady insisted I take over from her and have a few rallies with her husband. Mr. Jinan, wearing an England football jersey, seemed so proud to have his photo taken with me. 

One morning, outside a city bakery, a delightful mother and daughter introduced themselves. The girl spoke a few words of English, hence we did the small talk thing for a bit. They too happily posed for a shot. It made for a nice change to be photographing Chinese people, rather than the other way round. A wonderful picture that not even a fat pile of bricks could ruin.

Treasured Memories.

Finally, I’ll never forget the afternoon I was on my way to a market when a young woman approached to ask if she could help me find my destination. As it turned out she had studied in England, the city of Sheffield to be precise. Even more unlikely, we were both fans of the Sheffield-born singer songwriter Richard Hawley. Talk about a small world….

For a deeper insight into my time in Jinan, check out my short stories The City and the village Part I & The City and the Village Part II.

You can also read my location reports from across Shandong Province.

Like these? Then why not check out more of my travel articles from across China.

And I’ve written a short story series called Challenged In China.

I’ve been living, working and traveling all over the world since 2001. So why not check out my huge library of travel reports from over 40 countries.

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