Capital of Shandong Province (山东省) it may be but Jinan (济南) really doesn’t rate highly on the travellers itinerary. It is at best placed fourth if it rates at all: dwarfed by the ultra-famous Mount Tai (泰山); culturally out-gunned by the birthplace of Confucius at Qufu (曲阜) and just plain boring in comparison with the beer-festival’d ocean-fronted Bavarian-styled minion Qingdao (青岛).

I sympathise with Jinan much as I do with underdogs in any situation and this is usually more ...