Beijing Seeks Normalcy Amid SARS Crisis
By AUDRA ANG
BEIJING (AP) — Hou Junfan and Wang Shuju are back on the sidewalk outside the Workers’ Gymnasium, practicing their rhumba in the spring sunshine to the tinny strains of a portable stereo.
Wei Yanhua is taking Gui Gui, her white Pekinese, to have his fur and toenails trimmed for the first time in weeks. Jacky Fan and Paul Li are downing beers at a bar.
All over Beijing, people are starting to dance, shop and visit bars and restaurants like they did before SARS shut down the Chinese capital.
Though Chinese authorities are warning against relaxing anti-disease vigilance, some schools are starting to reopen after being closed for a month. Fewer people wear surgical masks. Newspapers say traffic accidents are surging as drivers return to the streets.
“The most frightening part is over,” said Fan, a 32-year-old salesman, sipping a Budweiser at a sidewalk table. “It’s time to start going out again.”
On Wednesday, the Health Ministry announced just four new cases and four fatalities on China’s mainland – a sharp drop from early May, when more than 100 new cases a day were reported. The mainland’s death toll rose to 325, with 5,323 people infected.
At least 175 people have died in Beijing, which accounts for about half of mainland China’s total cases.
At the height of the outbreak, Beijing ordered discos and other entertainment sites closed in hopes of containing the virus. Tens of thousands of people have been quarantined, while sports events were canceled and public gatherings banned. Traffic is still light between rush hours, as many tourists and migrants stay away and residents of the suburbs shun city crowds.
Evidence of SARS worries is still plentiful.
White-masked young men conduct health checks at entrances to residences and office buildings, some wearing aluminum protective gear resembling space suits. Suburban villages keep outsiders away, and department stores and government office buildings have installed infrared cameras to check visitors for signs of fever.
Official restrictions haven’t been lifted, and there is no sign yet when entertainment sites can reopen. Some public schools aren’t due to restart classes until July.
Some hotels, shops and restaurants, which weren’t covered by the order, shut down on their own for lack of customers and stopped paying employees.
But others are getting back to business.
In the Sanlitun bar district, the Old Chinese Character restaurant, once regularly packed with diners feasting on stewed pork belly and braised fish, reopened Sunday after being closed for a month.
Henry Li, who owns three Beijing nightclubs, said his business is “still bad.” He has laid off half his workers.
“The total number of customers has been reduced by 70 percent,” Li said. “We still haven’t walked out from our nightmare.”
But for Wei, the dog owner, the last few days have brought peace of mind.
“Things seem to be under control now,” she said as she waited with 4-year-old Gui Gui at the groomer on the city’s east side. “I never took him out when things were bad.”
A minute’s walk away, Hou and Wang – dance partners for 10 years – were doing the rhumba. It’s a common sight in Beijing, where thousands of people exercise by practicing ballroom dancing in parks.
The pair stopped practicing in public at the height of the outbreak, and even now still spend more time dancing in each other’s homes for safety.
“It feels so good to be out,” said Wang, a 46-year-old property manager in a black swirly skirt. “I’ve almost forgotten about SARS.”
In Sanlitun, chauffeurs Li Jun and Wang Gang snacked on popcorn washed down with Corona beers on the tree-lined street brightened by neon lights from other bars.
“People don’t seem to care anymore,” said Li. “The disease is becoming less serious in the eyes of the people.”
Said Wang: “Besides, SARS is something you can’t touch, you can’t see. How can you escape it?”
“The hygiene in the city now is better, but I haven’t changed my own habits,” he added, after loudly hacking up a gob of phlegm onto the ground.
Reviving its perennial battle against spitting, long thought to spread many diseases and now SARS, the city has boosted its fines for spitting from 60 cents to $6 – so far with little impact on the widespread, ingrained practice.
Dai Lei, a 24-year-old musician who was eating outdoors at another restaurant, said SARS had the paradoxical effect of helping her enjoy life more.
“With SARS, we don’t have to work,” she said. “We stay with our family. We chat. We play cards. We appreciate a more natural life now.”
In the Xidan shopping district, a usually crowded area that was deserted just weeks ago, lunchtime shoppers jostled again this week around bins filled with sale-priced clothes.
“There still aren’t as many customers as before,” said Qi Tao, a 22-year-old sales clerk. “We’re still losing money. It should get better soon, but it needs some time.”
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