Beerhouse at the Foot of Heiyou Mountain Part I

A Beerhouse at the Foot of Heiyou Mountain

Photo by Zhang Xinmin

Source: Popular Photography

A beer dream is being 「brewed」 at the Essen Restaurant located in the Karamay oil field, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The sweet fragrance of Wusu Beer permeates the house, although Wang Shilei, who has returned to China after graduating from a German university, and his German partner Daniel are worrying about some problems in expanded reproduction.

The scorching heat dies down after the sunset. A throng gathers in front of the water curtain movie at the Karamay River that meanders through the city. In the park, children are playing happily and the elderly are taking a walk on the riverbank and in the tree shade, enjoying themselves in the artificial cold fog. The creative industry park opposite the river is a favorite place of young people. When you cross the footbridge, you can easily see the sign of Essen Restaurant, whose lobby has a few big silver-grey jars. Unlike the rocks in the park that are used to create a fairy scene, these jars are for beer brewing.

I』m a Member of the Post-80s

「This guy is never contented with his lot,」 Wang Shilei』s classmate told me.

Wang Shilei went to Germany for further education after graduating from a Chinese university. Then he returned to Karamay, planning to land a job in the oil industry. Effortlessly, he passed the entrance exam of a petro company. In the next three years, he got promoted, got married and got a baby named Wang Xiaomiao. But he didn』t want to rest upon this stable life. At an alumni reunion, he had an in-depth discussion about starting-up with his German friend Daniel. When they traveled from Beijing to Xi』an, across half of the country, they laid out their specific plan. Their first idea was to open a cafe, but Wang rejected it on the grounds that a cafe does not appeal to Karamay people who have fixed work and life. He proposed to open a beerhouse.

Wang Shilei was tutoring two girls in guitar on the weekend. They two are classmates.

He rushed back to the restaurant after the guitar class.

A photo taken in 2014 when Daniel was invited to Wang』s house in Karamay.

Wang made many friends who shared the same passion for guitar and drum in Germany.

A party in the student canteen of the German university.

At the beginning, Wang did not expect start-up to be so painstaking a task. After the outline was made clear, what remained was to get the specifics done. He was very busy. On Saturdays, he had to purchase materials and work as a part-time music tutor in an art school. On Sundays, he taught music in his own classroom from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and then went back to the restaurant where he worked until midnight. He would easily break into a sweat after a short while of working in the restaurant. When he finally got a moment to rest, he would stare at the purchase list he had to do the next day.

Daniel and Wang Shilei were enjoying themselves in the cool of a park near the restaurant. The park featuring cold fog-spewing rockeries, fountains and greenbelt used to be the equipment warehouse of the Petro Bureau.

In May 2015, the producing equipment had a glitch during the restaurant』s trial run. To fix this problem, Wang went to a building materials market in Yonghong Road to find components in the early morning. The market is the oldest one in Karamay, and most of the shops are run by migrants who do not work in the oil industry. Fortunately, he easily found what he needed because the equipment and pumps used in his restaurant were all made in China.

A local young man worked part-time in the restaurant during his summer vacation. He was still studying in America.

Like Daniel, several chefs of the restaurant were attracted to Karamay by their own dreams. They hoped to start up their own businesses after accumulating experience and money.

Wang』s father-in-law, who has a technology background, was helping him fix a problem in the restaurant.

Daniel can express himself freely in German, but not in English. Few in Karamay can speak German, so Daniel only speaks German with Wang. He hopes to encounter his better half someday, not through matchmaking, and he can teach her German.

Sometimes the restaurant remains open until late hours in the summer. The stuff were having a late-night meal after closing.

「My 80s, be ready anytime!」 Wang pointed to the slogan on his T-shirt while talking to his employees. The cashier is his cousin who has left her job in the Bank of Kunlun to spare more time for her five-year-old child. The one responsible for beer bottling is another cousin who has just graduated from Sichuan University as an Environmental Art Design major. There are ten other employees including chefs, waiters and waitresses. Three waitresses just moved from a 50-square-meter apartment to a bigger 100-square-meter one. The restaurant was understaffed in its early days, so Wang had to ask some classmates to help out. The work was so intensive that they could barely stand straight after the first two weeks. Wang said: 「I may have to hire some more helpers, as well as young local part-time interns.」

All the waiters and waitresses are young people, with the youngest born in 1997. Every one of them, born in the post-80s or -90s, is good at dressing themselves up. Though they are rookie servers, they are very quick. 「Make me look good in the picture and don』t post it without photoshopping it,」 a girl required repeatedly. Most of the local girls came to the interviews accompanied by their boyfriends. The most frequently asked questions were what salaries they would get and what insurances would be covered. And many of them would sit for the exams of petro companies in September. At last, none of the local applicants chose to work in the restaurant.

They finally had the chance to sit around a table for a meal after the rush hour. 「I』m going to open my own restaurant one day. I』m honing myself and accumulating money,」 the young bakery man who moonlighted in the restaurant said confidently.