Shandong has always been working hard to develop, but something has always felt off. At least, when I was in college, two proposals shared by our professors were enough to illustrate this: The first proposal was to plan the Yellow River Delta as a counterpart to the Yangtze River Delta. The second was to designate Qufu, the birthplace of Confucianism, as a cultural special zone, modeled after Shenzhen’s special economic zone. These ideas gave many of us the confidence to stay and build our careers in our hometowns. It wasn’t until two years after graduation, when I moved to a first-tier city, that I realized the gap in every aspect was like a chasm. The environment’s influence and shaping power on a person is comparable to the impact of attending university.