Life in Jinan: the city

Jinan might not nearly be as big as Beijing, Shanghai or the like, but to me it is still enormous. Coming from a small town in the Dutch polder, I even needed to get used to Leiden, which is a small city even to my standards. Jinan is the capital city of Shandong province, and since nearly three months, I am one of its seven million citizens. Seven million! Every time I take a taxi or the bus to the train station, or cycle a bit farther than usual, the immensity of it all takes me a bit by surprise again. And Jinan doesn’t seem to be done building even more new flats.

Those first few days, it was already overwhelming enough to just walk

around our block. Jinan is, if I can say so, very Chinese in every way imaginable. All your senses are attacked by the sights and smells and sounds. On the streets, there is just a constant stream of people getting from A to B, from pedestrians, cyclists and scooters to those annoying miniature pick-up trucks, who all have to share the sidewalk/cyclist lane that’s also more often than not used as parking lot. The traffic is just chaos. When so many cars are in a hurry to get to their destination all at the same time, how could it be anything else, but what makes it worse is the honking. Here a honk can mean a myriad of things, from ‘watch out’, ‘move it’, to ‘hurry up’, or it is seemingly for no reason other than to add to the noise of it all.
In my hometown, you could practically get around with your eyes closed. In Jinan, it seems like I’m risking my life just crossing the streets. And still I have a hard time keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me, so easily distracted by all the interesting looking shops and restaurants along the road. I’ve learned to just stand my ground when crossing the street on foot, since traffic lights don’t seem to mean all that much. Above a street close to our compound hangs a sign that shows the plate number of cars who committed a traffic violation the day before, and from what I’ve seen, there’ll never be a shortage of new number plates.

Both our compound and the university campus seem worlds apart from the busy streets, since both are closed off from regular traffic. The compound feels a bit like a park, usually quiet and green. There is a tiny supermarket, a kindergarten and of course a playground. We suspect that many of the apartments in ours and the surrounding buildings are used as offices; during the day, the number of parked scooters is remarkably big, while after working hours, just a few remain.

When we took over the apartment from the former tenants, we also got their bikes. All three were old and quite rusty, two were still decent, but one was just plain annoying. That one was mine of course. I think I am spoiled by the reliable Dutch bikes back home, but I just couldn’t get used it. While the guys only had to buy new locks, I decided after a few weeks, when one of the tires was flat for the second time, to just buy another bike. Getting around by bike is certainly doable and some streets have very decent biking lines. Even though the campus is only a couple hundred meters away, I bike there every day, since the traffic means it still takes ten minutes to get there.
The campus is a bit like a miniature city on its own. It has broad, quiet roads, gardens and parks, two big libraries and a canteen with four floors and a basement. Then there are the dormitories and university buildings itself, of course. And this is still only the central campus of the university - in total there are six scattered throughout Jinan!

In the end, what stands out to me most in Jinan are the many contrasts apparent everywhere. Behind our compound are a few rows of low, empty buildings, seemingly ready to be taken down, most of the windows missing. Again behind those are three huge apartment flats being build, with big cranes and everything. When cycling to the university, we pass a very new, very fancy looking compound on the one side, while on the other side we see tiny old restaurants, a messy carwash and many, many food stands.
Along one and the same street, you can come across an expensive tea shop, tiny, worn-out looking supermarkets, sleek clothing stores, people selling fruits on the sidewalk from a cart, fancy dining places and smoky restaurants selling food to passer-by’s through an open window. There’s a stately cathedral just around the corner of a big supermarket/shopping mall, close to one of the other university campuses. On practically every corner, there are people to repair your

bike or scooter, second-hand shops and markets, while a few steps further gets you to shiny multiple-stories stores selling everything from household appliances to mobile phones. It’s fancy and modern, old and cheap, small and messy, big and imposing, all thrown together and everyone just goes along with it.
Then there is the city centre, all tall, modern buildings, advertisements and western brands everywhere trying their hardest to get your attention, large shopping malls and wide streets. But when you ask people what Jinan is known for, they say it’s the City of Springs. Hidden between the brown and grey, glass and stone of the city are those small paradises of green, with lake Daming and the surrounding park to top it off.

All in all, the only unity seems to be in the disunity of it all. I am trying to get used to it, while at the same time I’m not. I want to hold on to that sense of wonder and adventure I had when this year started. Of course, it’s impossible to be amazed by everything every day (that would be really tiring), but I try to keep an open mind and keep challenging myself. It might look like I’ve seen a lot already, but I’ve seen just a tiny part of this city (and don’t even get started on China). A year might look like long time, but time is practically flying!