This is the first full-length novel in China to portray the baijiu industry head-on.
After a lifetime in the baijiu industry, the protagonist is hired as general manager of a publicly listed baijiu company controlled by a state-owned enterprise, five years after his retirement. Drawing on his mastery of baijiu business management and extensive market experience, he seizes on new trends in the industry’s development and quickly pulls the large company out of the slump it has fallen into. Along the way, he deftly innovates within baijiu’s distinctive brand culture, handles sudden crises with ease, struggles to keep up with the digital transformation of baijiu companies, remains ambivalent about internationalization and appealing to younger consumers, and flounders in the capital markets. In the end, he becomes a fading hero of the baijiu industry.
Baijiu is a “familiar stranger” to people. This uniquely Chinese industry has become a trillion-yuan sector, yet it is also a listless industry that looks most like a “rising sun,” or a vigorous industry with all the hallmarks of a “setting sun.” It is these contradictions that reflect the many facets of the era in our protagonist.
