WUHAN, China (Reuters) – In a beer hall full of Wuhan, Zhang Qiong wipes his face birthday cake after a food fight with his friends.
“After experiencing the first wave of epidemic in Wuhan and then the release, I feel like I’m living a second life,” says Zhang, 29, who works at a textile store in the central Chinese city that was the original epicenter of COVID -19.
Outside, maskless partygoers pour into the streets, smoking and playing in the street with toy machine guns and balloons.
Nightlife in Wuhan is in full swing again for almost seven months after the city lifted its strict closure and the city’s young partygoers were embracing catharsis.
In unimaginable scenes of many cities around the world saving themselves from the resurgence of the pandemic, young residents of Wuhan during a recent night surfed, ate food on the street and filled the city’s nightclubs as they sought to recover. lost time.
(Click on reut.rs/3nC1ZdH to see a Wuhan nightlife photo package)
The revival of the city’s affected nightlife economy offers a vision of a post-pandemic lifestyle that many expect to become a reality in 2021, following the global launch of COVID-19 vaccines.
Wuhan has not reported a new case of local disease transmission since May 10, after suffering one of the tightest closures in the world.
The city of eleven million was shut down from the rest of China in a surprise closure overnight from Jan. 23, with neighborhoods of roads erected and planes, trains and buses banned from entering the city. Nearly 3,900 of the 4,634 deaths recorded in China by COVID-19 occurred in the industrial city.
Students, musicians, artists and young workers, the backbone of the city’s nightlife scene, told stories of being trapped at home for months, many taking the opportunity to prepare for a time when the city would recover.
“Some of my new music will definitely deal with the pandemic era,” said Wang Xinghao, head of Wuhan’s Mad Rat pop rock band, which drew a crowd of more than 100 people to a venue. local last Wednesday night.
Wang jumped on stage and made people’s surf fans jump on stage and at one point threw his fake leopard skin coat at the audience screaming.
He said one of the new songs was inspired by the three months he spent living close to his mother.
Many said the end of the blockade has inspired larger stakes.
“During the epidemic era, Wuhan was really a dead city,” said Yi Yi, a rock music enthusiast after the show. “Now people go out to eat and have fun. I don’t think there were that many people before the epidemic. “
Despite the flourishing night scene, business and restaurant owners in Wuhan say it may still be some time before the increase in turnover offsets the massive losses during the closing.
But for customers now flooding Wuhan’s night spotlights, the message is simpler.
“I just want to appreciate it this time, because in life you never know when it will end,” Zhang told the Wuhan Brewery. “Make every happy day count.”
Reports by Cate Cadell and Thomas Suen; Lincoln Feast Edition.