In Chinese textbook the city, Jinan has long been portrayed as a splendid city studed with exuberant springs , among which Baotu spring is universally assumed as the most fantastic natural phenomenon . I did not have the chance of calling upon Jinan until a few days ago when I went to meet my wife-to-be in Liaoning by way of this city. however from my standpoint the city seemed to be not as cheerfully captivating and spirit-enhancing as I have pictured in my mind . in fact the city contours seemed to be in disarray and lacked enough encouragement as can be identified in such cities as Shanghai or Hangzhou , even those capital cities like Shenyang .

Scrolling such internet pages concerning the juxtoposition between Shenyang and Jinan, one can swiftly grasp the fact that capital cities as they both are , Jinan has failed to achieve the same level of development and economy prosperity as found in Shenyang , there is a big gap between the two in terms of GDP output and the economy potential embedded in two cities also differs from each other sharply ,

I discharged myself from the crowded and aweful train and set my foot upon the soil of this land characterized in Chinese ancient books as the one nourishing colourful and far-reaching culture which has functioned as a shaping force upon Chinese character and the birthplace of renowned Confucius divided between one who fathers Chinese culture and the other who plunged china into two thousands year’s entrenched feudalism and a set of ideas and thoughts which centers upon stability , order as well as political repression , however there seemed no traces of the great saint imprinting upon this land , and the first glance of this land convinced me of the fact there were no discernable discrepancy between the land and others .

When I travelled through the tunnel and walked out of Jinan railway station, the sky was aggressively low, and several featureless medium-height buildings leapt into my eyes , as it was only half past eight , I felt a little hungry , there was a narrow alley on the right side where a string of restaurants can be seen , all seemed time-worn indicated by the unpleasant black spots peppering the originally white-washed walls , the business may be a little dull as few people dined there or maybe the time for breakfast has passed , I strolled upon the nearly empty street , eyes fixing upon the restaurants , however there was nothing attractive enough to trap me inside , so I decided to have a try in another street , I had an aversion to those restaurants with a very unpleasant appearance , and sometimes it made my stomach churn a lot when I saw a lot of people dining together with the floor strew with newspaper or the leaves of vegetable .

At length I opted for one restaurant , about three minutes’ walk from the railway station and located in a street with a canopy of tall trees overhead , when I sat down , a middle-aged woman came to my side and inquired which dishes I preferred as she handed me a large book containing all the information of the courses , after a casual glimpse , I placed order for a plate of pork mixed with cabbage , a bowl of soup with rice added to . after a while , I was left alone , and outside the window was the still the grey sky with a long expanse of plain and grey roof under it , noise from cars driven along the far road was clearly audible although a little muffled through the heavy window , as my thoughts roamed aimlessly , the solemn lady put what I had ordered before me , and left without saying a word .

As I left the restaurant , it was about nine , outside was still the perpetual flow of breadwinners , in the corner there were two people wrangling together apparently over what I deemed as a trivial matter , as I have commonly seen in the street , people nowdays seemed readily prepared for any arguments , yesterday when I was sauntering on the street in shanghai , I encountered two kinds of incidents where people were locked together over who should be responsible for what had happened , people are easy to boil , as I was thinking , and more and more people seemed to be attracted there out of curiousity , two policemen arrived at the scene to resolve it .

I climbed into the taxi and demanded to be sent to Quancheng square , I had planned this was the final destination before I should board the train destined for Shenyang which was scheduled to start at about two in the afternoon , luckily , there were still four hours available to me .

The square was not thronged with tourists as I have expected , and the fountain did not work , so I think the square was deprived of the most fantastic scenes that the square-builder has built , the square was roughly measured 700m in length and 300 in width , and it seemed big enough to hold thousands of people , in the far towered several unimpressive buildings under the gaze of the solemn sky .

As the time for the train to leave neared , I took a taxi back to the characterless railway station and waited among multitudes of trip-makers .