For those that don’t know, Journey To The West is a famous work of Chinese literature, written by Wu Cheng’en who lived between 1500 and 1582. In Chinese, the novel is known as Xiyouji, which translates as Journey To The West, but is also known as “Monkey” in the 1942 English translation by Arthur Waley.
It tells the story of the adventures of a 7th century buddist monk called Xuanzang (who lived betwen 602 and 664 CE). Xuanzang embarked on a pilgrimage to the Western Paradise (Sukhavati) with three animal spirits. Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. Zhu Wuneng, literally “Pig Awakened to Ability”. Finally, a river ogre known as Sha Wujin, or “Sand Awakened to Purity”.
It’s based on the true story of Xuanzang who travelled to India via Gansu province, Qinghai province, Xinjiang province, and then through regions that are now known as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and then Pakistan before reaching India.
While we’re not claiming that any of us are taking a journey of thousands of miles from China to India, we simply thought that the proximity of our site (to the west of Longyan City) was an interesting way to introduce the team in Da Chi to the world and so off even more of our really really really bad photoshop.
Sun Wukong (“Monkey King”, 孙悟空) AKA: Winnie
When did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I joined Nine Rivers Distillery back on 1st December 2021 and took on the role of Finance Manager.
Where are you from?
I’m originally from Xiling Township, Pingnan County, Ningde City in Fujian Province. Pingnan County is home to about 180,000 people and is famous as being the capital of summer mushrooms in China. In fact, Pingnan exports more than 6,000 tons of shiitake mushrooms, known locally as xiānggū (香菇) which essentially means fragrant mushrooms.
How far is your Journey To The West (of Longyan)?
I think its about 500 kilometers, (310 miles) or about 6 hours driving if I don’t stop. Alternatively it’s just over 3 hours on the high-speed train from Ningde to Longyan, and then a 40-minute drive to Da Chi, to the west of Longyan.
What did you study and where?
I studied Finance in Fuzhou, the provincial capital of Fujian.
What did you do before Nine Rivers?
I worked in finance for about 5 years, at two different companies, both of which were in Fuzhou.
Why did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I wanted to move to Longyan, which is my husband’s home city. My husband and I wanted to be closer to his family so that our son can spend more time with his grandparents. I looked around online for any suitable roles and 9RD caught my attention because it was just so different to everything else.
I knew nothing about distilleries (I originally assumed it was a place for making beer!) and had no knowledge of whisky or other western alcohols. But I clicked on a link for their website and saw some really interesting pictures and read some content about there being lots of foreigners behind the project. I thought it could be a great way to practise and improve my English and get some experience in a completely different industry.
Why have you stayed at Nine Rivers Distillery? What keeps you here?
The fun. Sure, we all work hard and we carry a lot of stress because there are so few of us on the team, but we have really good fun as we do it. The atmosphere in the office is almost always full of laughing and Jay’s constant practical jokes that he plays on everyone. If you ever get a chance to talk to Maggie, just ask her about the joke that was played on her on Wednesday (20th September), when we had a guest at the office.
I tell my friends about what our working environment is like and they are all surprised that a company like this can exist. We all get on really well, as if we’ve been friends since grade school. We all hang out sometimes on weekends with all our children and it really does feel like a family.
Sha Wujing (“Sandy”, 沙悟淨) AKA: Jay
When did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I’ve been involved since the beginning. When it was nothing more than whisky fuelled ramblings at Shenzhen Whisky Networking. So you could say as long ago as 2017.
Where are you from?
I’m from Birmingham, or as we say in our local accent, “Buuuurninguuum.” There are rumours that there’s a lot of inspiration from Birmingham in our architecture.
How far is your Journey To The West (of Longyan)?
According to the interwebs, it would be about 9,558 kilometers from Birmingham to Longyan. Although technically, I came to Longyan from Shenzhen, where I’d been based since about 2015.
From Shenzhen to our site in Da Chi is about 400 kilometers. It’s typically about 4 hours on the high speed road, or 6-8 hours driving, depending on traffic.
What did you study and where?
Life, all over the world. That’s not me trying to be flippant. I simply don’t have any formal education.
What did you do before Nine Rivers?
I sold booze in China. Wine, liquor and of course whisky. Before that I used to be a bit of a geek, working in the IT industry bashing code, typically in a dark room, locked far away from other humans.
Why did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I’m the only person involved (or ever likely to be) that just didn’t really have a choice. After a group of us decided that we were going to start exploring the concept of building a distillery and it came to picking someone to lead the project, everyone just pointed at me.
Why have you stayed at Nine Rivers Distillery? What keeps you here?
I’m just keeping the big chair warm. Until someone else that has 100 a hours a week to put into a job, comes along and relieves me of my dutie.
Tang Sanzang (“Tripitaka”, 唐三藏) AKA Maggie
When did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I joined in November 2021.
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Putian City, in Fujian Province. It’s a city that’s between Fuzhou (which is to the north) and Quangzhou (which is to the south).
Putian is famous for many things, but my own personal favourite thing is Mazu.
Mazu (there are another 10 different names for Mazu, but let’s keep it simple) is a Chinese sea goddess and is a popular deity all across Chinese coastal regions because she was traditionally worshipped by fishermen and sailors.
She is believed to have come from Meizhou Island (part of Putian) over 1000 years ago, and was a shamaness and features in many Chinese myths and legends. Worship of Mazu (or Mazuism) is actually practised in more than 1500 temples in 26 different countries around the world although it is usually mixed in with Taoism and Buddism.
There are 20 temples for Mazu on Meishou Island, about another 100 across Putian, 70 more across Fujian province. There are 40 more temples in Guangdong Province, 30 in Zhejiang province and Jiangsu province and there is even a Mazu temple as far north as Tianjin
How far is your Journey To The West (of Longyan)?
About 270 or 280 kilometers. Between 3 and 4 hours drive. It’s much faster on the high speed train. It’s just over 2 hours.
What did you study and where?
I studied foreign trade and English in Fuzhou, at Fujian University.
What did you do before Nine Rivers?
After graduation, I worked for a few years. Then I met my husband, got married, had a family and prioritised my life with my children. When our youngest child was old enough to stay at home with her grandparents, I decided to look for a new job.
Why did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
I actually found out about the job by pure chance. My husband was having lunch at a local noodle shop and overheard someone talking about needing someone that could. bean administrator and an office manager but was struggling to find anyone because the work location was in Da Chi town. They exchanged WeChat IDs, I sent in my CV, had a telephone interview a few days later, then a face to face interview the following week. I started work on the following Monday.
My husband works in Da Chi town so I used to visit there regularly. I know a lot of the locals and have done for many years. I’d heard a bit of local gossip that the company had lots of foreigners involved and that everyone in the local town thought the project was going to be huge.
Da Chi is just a small town so if there was something happening there that everyone was talking about, I wanted to be a part of it.
Why have you stayed at Nine Rivers Distillery? What keeps you here?
There are so many reasons that if I list them all it will just sound too cheesy. But first and foremost, the working environment. It’s unlike any I’ve ever experienced. It’s a really positive balance between hard work, challenges, and the space to grown and develop as a professional.
I’ve had a lot of coaching in this job. Not just in terms of being taught new skills but also in helping me develop the confidence in myself to take on what is now such a senior and challenging role.
In less than 2 years I’ve gone from being an office manager to now being the person that leads all of the official processes, procedures and governance that underpins the company. On a project such as ours, a distillery, it falls under the same strict standards for construction and operations as a chemical plant or an oil refinery. So as you can imagine, there’s a lot of official processes and procedures that we have to comply with on all aspects of the business.
I also manage all of the government relationships that we have across Longyan City, Xin Luo district and Da Chi town. A project such as ours is not just important to Da Chi. It’s important to the whole city. So we have everyone right up to the top of the government of Longyan city closely monitoring our project and ready to help when we need it. So part of my role is to ensure that everyone is kept updated – sometimes weekly to some departments, while other departments it’s only monthly updates.
I spend a lot of my time downtown in Longyan. The distillery site is at least 40 to 50 minutes drive from downtown so to save all that lost time from travelling, we have a small office just a few hundred meters from where most of the central government offices are. It’s nothing more than some space for a few desks but it makes a huge difference to my day to save all the driving time.
Despite working harder in this job than I’ve ever worked before, I still have more free time. Not just because of the time saved from driving, but because we work in the only company I’ve ever heard of where the boss tells everyone to go home at 6pm. It’s not some casual, meaningless throwaway comment – if we’re still in the office at 6:05 he starts ranting! A huge chance from the typical 996 (9am, to 9pm, 6 days a week) that seems to dominate so many industries these days.
Zhu Bajie (“Pigsy”, 豬八戒) AKA: Olive
When did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
10th February 2023. Weirdly, it was a Friday.
Where are you from?
I’m from Du’an Autonomous County, Hechi City, in Guangxi province. One of the many, many places that no one outside of China has heard of. Even within China, most people from outside of Guangxi province probably don’t know anything about Hechi City, or Du’an County.
I’m Zhuàngzú (壮族) with Zhuang being one of the 56 ethnic groups in China. There are about 18 million Zhuang people in China, with most of them living in Guangxi province, but some also live in Yunnan Province, Guangdong Province, Guizhou Province and Hunan Province.
How far is your Journey To The West (of Longyan)?
About 1150 kilometers which would take about 12 hours non-stop driving from Da Chi. The highspeed train would take longer because I would have to travel first to Guiyang in Guizhou then catch another train with about 3 or 4 hours between transfers. In total the train journey would be about 15 hours.
What did you study and where?
I actually studied foreign trade in Sichuan province.
What did you do before Nine Rivers?
I worked in a number of foreign trading companies and did many different roles including customer services, sales, translation and also some financi and commercial work.
Why did you join Nine Rivers Distillery?
My husband and his family are actually from Da Chi town. Our village is just a few kilometers from the site so I actually applied for the job initially because it was so convenient. To take a job in Longyan in the city would mean I would drive at least 40 minutes each way to work while the location of Nine Rivers is actually just a few minutes away on a scooter.
To have an opportunity to work in a company where I can continue to use my English language skills, literally on my doorstep, seemed like an opportunity that was too good to miss. So I applied and got the job.
Why have you stayed at Nine Rivers Distillery? What keeps you here?
As I mentioned, it was initially about convenience. But now it’s because the role is so varied that it never gets boring.
When I first interviewed for the job, one of the things I was told at the interview is that a startup company is always going to mean that everyone will end up getting involved in many different things because the team is so small. In a typical day I can be doing finance work, investor relations, interpreting at meetings, translating official documents, writing content for social media, and even helping to organise events. No two days are the same and it never gets boring.
I also enjoy being around the team that we have. We really do get along well and that makes the working day so much easier. I’ve had many jobs before where you literally just bite your lip and endure 9 or 10 hours with grumpy, stressed out people (with their stress also affecting your own mindset) in a soulless company that just see employees as headcount and a cost base.
How many companies do you know where your boss comes over to your village to advise your parents-in-law how to improve their crop yield? We had a really poor rice harvest this year, and when I was talking about in in the office, it turns out that Jay is something of a closet farmer.
He came over that afternoon, checked our rice, looked over the field, pointed out some issues with storm water runoff (which apparently washes away the good nutrients from the soil), and told us which legumes to use as a second crop each year to create nitrogen fixation in the soil.
He then told us how to save money on fertilizer by making our own through composting kitchen scraps and the leftovers from whatever crops we grow. Definitely not a typical company and just one of the many reasons why I’ve stayed at Nine Rivers Distillery.
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