Sister Pineapple Carved Out a Place for Herself in a Man's World

She was once a vendor selling small trash fish. Hearing that picking pineapples could make money, she plunged straight into the pineapple fields and ended up covered in cuts and bruises. She had little capital, yet she always dared to be the first to try. After several battles in the business world, in an industry once dominated by men, she earned herself a resounding nickname. See how Wu Jianlian of Xuwen, Guangdong, was forced into entrepreneurship and transformed step by step into Sister Pineapple. This is the sea of pineapples, and it is full of hidden dangers.

Both sides of every pineapple leaf are densely lined with sharp spines. It is now peak pineapple season, and at this time the spines are at their toughest. Walk through a pineapple field a few times and the consequences are gruesome. Skin pricked by pineapple spines can also have an allergic reaction, with unbearable itching.

But today's protagonist, Wu Jianlian, insists on holding a pineapple-picking contest right in the pineapple field.

Wu Jianlian: Whoever picks fast and selects a lot wins a prize. When I say one, two, three, start, then you start picking. Get ready, one, two, three, start. Let's see who's fastest.

At Wu Jianlian's command, everyone put in full effort picking pineapples.

In one run, a single person picked over a hundred jin. After two rounds, two workers won prize money.

Wu Jianlian: These two, they selected a lot and they were fast. So they got the prize money.

The pineapple field is full of spines, so why would Wu Jianlian still hold a pineapple-picking contest to make the pickers go faster? It turns out that March, April and May every year are the season when pineapples hit the market in huge volumes, and also Wu Jianlian's golden opportunity to make money.

Wu Jianlian: Everyone needs to be a bit faster. Work faster than usual. At the crucial time, in March and April you have to go all out. You're even slow when it comes to taking money? Of course you have to be quicker to get the money.

So how do the pineapple pickers dare to move freely through a pineapple field full of sharp spines?

Reporter: Those pineapples are so prickly. Aren't you afraid?

Picker: Not afraid.

Reporter: Why?

Picker: What's there to fear? Just wear more clothes.

Reporter: Wear more clothes. How many layers are you wearing?

Picker: Three.

Reporter: Three pairs of pants. One, two, three.

To avoid being pricked by pineapple spines, the pickers can only wear three pairs of pants, long-sleeved tops and thick gloves in the high temperature of 37 to 38 degrees.

From the very day she entered the pineapple business, Wu Jianlian's demand on herself has been one word: "fast." That is how she seized one opportunity after another and became an outstanding figure in Xuwen County's pineapple industry. Her peers even gave her a resounding nickname.

Lai Yuanfang: Sister Pineapple.

He Shitang: Sister Pineapple is her.

Huang Yonghong: We all call her Sister Pineapple.

He Shitang: Because in all of Qujie she is the only woman doing it. A woman, a woman making a name for herself is quite something.

Peer: She is a woman, but the drive and spirit she has for entrepreneurship is no less than a man's.

Now Wu Jianlian has over 7,000 mu of pineapple base, a pineapple processing factory and a large pineapple trading market. People like her with a complete industry chain are rare locally. Now the name Sister Pineapple is called more and more widely, yet she entered the pineapple industry only because she could not afford to eat.

This is a kind of small trash fish from the sea. Now this small trash fish sells locally for over ten yuan per jin. Yet back in the 1980s, this small trash fish sold for only 1 yuan per jin. Back then Wu Jianlian had no capital, so she could only sell this cheapest small trash fish to make a living. Even working from dawn to dusk every day, she could barely maintain her family's basic living.

Wu Jianlian: Where would there be money to save, right? I didn't even know where the bank was. I had never even seen a hundred-yuan note. Wanting to eat a meal of pork was very, very hard.

She heard that picking pineapples for others could make money, so the moment she arrived on site, she rushed into the field and started picking. The pineapple plant is covered in sharp spines. At first Wu Jianlian had no experience and did not know to take protective measures. She just went into the field and picked, and her arms and legs were all scraped raw by the pineapple spines.

Wu Jianlian: Look how nasty those pineapple spines are. But there's no other way, right? To make a living, if you get pricked, you get pricked; if you get scratched, you get scratched.

Later, Wu Jianlian came up with an idea: she specially made a pair of trouser legs to prevent being pricked by the pineapple spines.

Wu Jianlian: We made these specially.

Reporter: What are these made from?

Wu Jianlian: Made from fertilizer bags.

Reporter: Fertilizer bags, right.

Wu Jianlian: Mm, fertilizer bags.

Reporter: Are these easy to use, going into the field?

Wu Jianlian: Very easy to use.

Reporter: Easy to use, you don't even need to wear shoes.

Wu Jianlian: Don't even need to wear shoes.

It was this Wu Jianlian, struggling to make a living, who in just one year became a heroine of the pineapple industry.

He Shitang: There was no other woman doing pineapples. The women here don't have her courage.

Huang Yonghong: She's even stronger than us men. Among people who ship pineapples, basically none are women - it's just her alone. We're all in the same trade, and we all know who ships pineapples and who the big players are.

In 2000, Xuwen County's pineapple planting area was over a hundred thousand mu, and pineapple had already become a leading local industry. Many people made their fortune from pineapples, and at the time the most profitable were the shippers. Wu Jianlian also discovered the business opportunity in shipping pineapples. But at the time there were simply no women in Xuwen County shipping pineapples.

Shipping pineapples is high-risk. After pineapples are picked, their shelf life is only 5 days. They must reach the buyer within 5 days, otherwise the pineapples rot and you lose everything. Picking pineapples is earning a living by strength, but being a middleman relies on brains and guts.

Wu Jianlian: If others can do it, why shouldn't I? Surely if others can do it, I can do it too. If others can do it, we should give it a try too and see how it goes. If I can't do it, then I'll stop.

But locally, everyone shipping pineapples was male, and there were all kinds of inconveniences for a woman shipping pineapples. Shipping meant riding along with the truck. On a typical truck, besides the boss shipping the goods, there would be two truck drivers taking turns driving. If Wu Jianlian went to ship goods, she would have to squeeze into the cramped cab with two male drivers, and one squeeze would last dozens of hours.

High risk, harsh conditions, yet Wu Jianlian still decided to give it a try. So at the pineapple market she found a buyer from Hunan and wanted to ship 20 tons of goods.

This is the pineapple trading market in Xuwen County. Farmers bring the freshest pineapples here to trade. Many middlemen stand at the entrance of the pineapple market grabbing goods. They hold a wad of hundred-yuan bills and a piece of chalk in their hands. When they see pineapples they like, they walk up and negotiate the price with the farmer. Even the rumbling of engines cannot dampen their enthusiasm.

Middleman: With this money I grab pineapples and buy pineapples here. Whichever truck looks good, I buy that one. This is the deposit for one truck - 100 yuan is enough.

Reporter: Chen San, what does 8 liang mean?

Middleman: Chen means bought by someone surnamed Chen, and this is the third truck bought, starting at 8 liang.

Back then, Wu Jianlian also had to compete for goods alongside the men. Not one of her peers gave way to her just because she was a woman. At the time Wu Jianlian had only 50,000 yuan in hand, and shipping 20 tons of pineapples cost 30,000 to 40,000, just enough to haul one truck. After choosing the pineapples, she proposed to the farmer to pay a deposit first. Once the pineapples were sold, she would pay the balance in full, guaranteeing not a cent less.

Wu Jianlian: In life you must keep your word. Even if you make a loss, you must find a way to settle accounts with the farmers.

This truckload had to reach the customer intact, otherwise not only would she fail to earn the shipping fee, she would have to bear the loss of the whole truckload of pineapples herself. And then there would be no funds to continue.

Quality is what Wu Jianlian cares about most. When selecting pineapples she checks them one by one, specifically looking at the pineapple eyes. Can pineapples grow eyes? What exactly do pineapple eyes look like?

Wu Jianlian: These are pineapple eyes.

Reporter: Pineapple eyes.

Wu Jianlian: Yes.

Reporter: Why do you call them that?

Wu Jianlian: They have eye after eye after eye. Just like eyes.

Reporter: Right. They do look like eyes.

Wu Jianlian: This eye is a bit bigger, this eye is a bit smaller. This one is definitely a bit sweeter than that one. Because in this season, pineapples shouldn't be too yellow. When the weather gets hot, if they're yellow and taken to market, they bruise easily.

Reporter: Is this green-skinned pineapple also sweet?

Wu Jianlian: Also sweet, this one is even tastier. This one ripened naturally; its ripeness in the field is already sufficient.

Once the truck was loaded, Wu Jianlian headed for Hunan at once. Under Wu Jianlian's care, this truckload of pineapples was delivered intact to the customer. And she repaid the farmers' pineapple money in full as well.

This one truckload opened the door for Wu Jianlian to strike gold in the pineapple industry, and she also became the first woman in Xuwen County to work as a pineapple middleman. The name Sister Pineapple gradually spread among her peers. Relying on integrity and quality, Wu Jianlian's sales in 2000 reached over 1 million yuan. After 8 years as a middleman, she had savings of three to four million.

Wu Jianlian's ambitions grew wilder and wilder. She discovered that when she shipped pineapples to pineapple processing factories in other provinces, after processing, not only could they make money, but the profit was even greater than what she made from transport.

Wu Jianlian: You ship to others and earn a little handling fee. Our own doorstep is full of pineapples, right? We'd be better off opening our own processing factory, processing ourselves, which is more convenient for us and earns more money.

Wu Jianlian made a budget: building a pineapple processing factory would require an investment of at least over 7 million. With such a large investment, many people in the pineapple industry were anxious for her. Because at the time in Xuwen, no one dared to do pineapple processing.

Huang Yonghong: A processing factory mainly depends on sales channels and such. If you can produce it and sell it, that's fine. Even if you have the ability to set up a processing factory, you still might not be able to develop sales channels. You just can't find them.

Wu Jianlian could not come up with over 7 million all at once either, but she knew pineapple processing could bring substantial profits. Whenever she had money, she poured it into the processing factory.

Wu Jianlian: With a thousand yuan I dare to do a ten-thousand-yuan undertaking; with ten thousand yuan I dare to do a hundred-thousand-yuan undertaking. Just boldly go for it, boldly do it. To develop, we have to grow big, become strong and big - that is, use small money to do big things.

By 2008, Wu Jianlian's canned pineapple processing factory was completed. This was also Xuwen County's first canned pineapple enterprise.

Wu Jianlian believes that as long as the quality is good, she need not fear that the canned pineapples won't sell. Every year in March, April and May is when Wu Jianlian buys pineapples in large volumes, because only pineapples on the market during this period taste the best.

Wu Jianlian: Mm, too sweet. Fragrant and sweet. Pineapples from April and May have a good mouthfeel and high sugar content. The cans made from them taste better.

Wu Jianlian buys pineapples in the best season, and she also selects the best from the best among each batch. Pineapples for canning must be ripe enough. To judge a pineapple's ripeness, Wu Jianlian has a special method: tapping the pineapple like you tap a watermelon.

Wu Jianlian: A faint sound, see, a faint sound, it's very sweet. This sound, see, too loud, then it isn't this sweet.

Reporter: You also judge by the sound.

Wu Jianlian: Yes.

Reporter: The louder the sound, the less sweet.

Wu Jianlian: It isn't this sweet. But with no sound at all it's not tasty either. Overripe.

Wu Jianlian judges a pineapple's ripeness by tapping it. Don't underestimate this action of hers. This very action saves her quite a bit of cost. After pineapples are peeled and sliced, there is still a step of boiling them in water. At this stage, highly ripe pineapples need only a small amount of white sugar to reach the standard sweetness.

Right at the critical moment when the canned pineapples were about to enter the market, Wu Jianlian's approach left many people baffled. She deliberately chose the time when fresh pineapples hit the market to promote canned pineapples.

Wu Jianlian: Come over, come over, everyone come and try some if you'd like. Have a taste.

Consumer: Delicious.

Through tasting, many consumers gradually began to accept canned pineapples.

Consumer: It feels very refreshing, very tasty. Very sweet and light. Fresh pineapple is a bit pungent and cuts your tongue, but this doesn't, and its mouthfeel is better.

Consumer: When we go back, we all take a few boxes home, because these cans are a local specialty. We work here, so when we go back we bring some specialty back, which is only natural.

Reporter: Where is your hometown?

Consumer: My hometown is Luchuan, Guangxi.

Actually, at first Wu Jianlian was not fully confident about this approach either. But the market's response surprised many who had worried for her, and to a certain extent matched her expectations.

Wu Jianlian: During pineapple season, let them have a taste and compare with fresh pineapple, see what the mouthfeel is like. You have to cultivate it slowly; they'll have to eat cans after finishing the pineapples - once fresh pineapple season is over, they'll eat cans.

Now Wu Jianlian's canned pineapples are not only sold in Xuwen County town, but have also gone beyond Guangdong, selling to Jiangxi, Hunan and other places. Wu Jianlian has courage and drive, and the name Sister Pineapple has spread beyond the province. She has turned March, April and May every year into her golden money-making season. In 2008, sales in just these three months reached over 20 million yuan.

Yet in 2009, Sister Pineapple did something that shocked everyone. For a time, Wu Jianlian's doorstep was almost worn down by visitors. Everyone came running to pour out their troubles to her, hoping she could find a way out for them.

Huang Yonghong: Whatever big or small matter there is here with shipping pineapples, she's the one who steps forward to solve it.

It turned out that when pineapples hit the market in 2009, Xuwen County's pineapple industry was facing a severe crisis. Pineapples were slow to sell, and a jin of pineapples could only fetch twenty or thirty cents. When people mention that year, the fruit farmers still remember it vividly.

Farmer: We made a loss, everyone made a loss.

Reporter: Could you earn back the fertilizer money?

Farmer: No.

Reporter: Couldn't earn it back.

Farmer: Couldn't earn it back. It took about two or three years to earn it back.

Wu Jianlian was a major grower and a major distributor, so this slow-selling crisis hit her first and hardest. Others came to her to pour out their troubles, but she had no one to confide in. So she went alone to the seaside, wanting to think about what methods might ease the current predicament.

Wu Jianlian: The old market was only 30 mu, too narrow, it couldn't satisfy the fruit farmers. The pineapples they brought couldn't get into the market, and couldn't be sold. When out-of-town bosses came here and saw that - loading fruit on the highway? They didn't dare come.

After returning from the seaside, she took a liking to a 150-mu plot of wasteland, invested over 6 million and built this pineapple trading market, which at the time did not bring her much real income either.

Wu Jianlian: When we buy pineapples we have to select them; when we sell pineapples others have to peel them; that factory has to peel pineapples. That we hold pineapple competitions just shows the ordinary people's interest in pineapples.

Instead, Wu Jianlian was holding a sports meet at the pineapple trading market, a fun sports meet with pineapple as its theme. The first event was carrying pineapples with a shoulder pole.

Wu Jianlian: Get ready, one, two, three, start.

Wu Jianlian: This one is first, everyone can see. First. This one is second, this one second. This one is third, everyone watch, this one is third.

The next event was holding pineapples with tongs. Not only did you have to hold them, you had to run fast.

Wu Jianlian: One, two, three, start.

Carrying pineapples, holding pineapples, peeling pineapples. Although the contests had winners and losers, no one cared - what they cared about was the atmosphere.

Reporter: Which contest do you think is the most fun?

Fruit farmer: They're all fun. Each one is fun.

Reporter: Which one do you think is the most fun of all?

Fruit farmer: I think the pineapple-carrying one.

Reporter: Why?

Fruit farmer: It just felt really funny, swaying back and forth, quite fun.

Tourist: Holding an event. The point is to take part, to have fun together. The local pineapple is the specialty. Everyone holds an event so that the surrounding provinces, or people from around the world, all know about it, and everyone comes here to join the event and have fun together.

Wu Jianlian held sports meets at the market to draw a crowd. She wanted to build a large pineapple market as a breakthrough, creating a trading platform for both buyers and sellers. Using the pineapple trading market as a calling card, she aimed to spread its fame far and wide. She not only wanted to attract farmers to sell their goods at the trading market, but even more so, she hoped more pineapple buyers would come to purchase. To this end, she promoted it everywhere.

Wu Jianlian: Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Shenyang, Beijing, I've been to all those places. Wherever there's a market, I go to hand out business cards, I go to make the rounds, so they all know we have a pineapple market in Qujie.

Word spread from one to ten, from ten to a hundred. After three years of Wu Jianlian's promotion, farmers and buyers alike knew about this pineapple trading market.

Reporter: From Daqing, coming all this way to buy pineapples.

Yu Ya'ai: Right, this is the sea of pineapples, the place where pineapples come from. You have to come to this local area to load goods if you want it cheap.

Farmer: It's big here, there are lots of people, the sales volume is a bit bigger. There's nowhere else to sell. Where else is there to sell? Only here.

This trading market not only provides a trading platform for both buyers and sellers, but also publicly posts pineapple trading information and prices at the market. If farmers want to enter the market to trade, they are charged a fee of 25 yuan. During pineapple season, the maximum daily trading volume can reach 3500 tons.

Now Wu Jianlian's base area has reached over 7000 mu. Selling pineapples, canning processing, and the pineapple market, Wu Jianlian's sales in 2015 alone reached over 60 million yuan. She has also decided to take the lead in introducing more pineapple deep-processing projects. Her vision has expanded from profiting herself and leading farmers to profit, to looking at the development of the entire pineapple industry.