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Nightlife in Wuhan in September 2020
Photo:
Getty Images
On a Wednesday evening in October, the Vox Live House in Wuhan is about half full.
Under brightly colored spotlights, a bald man thrashes on a bulbous drum, a young woman works a traditional stringed instrument, the keyboardist sings a plaintive song at the top of his throat.
A driving, experimental, but also quite Chinese sound.
In front of the stage, the audience rocks shoulder to shoulder, hardly anyone wears a mask.
In the back of the bar area, guests are chatting over a beer or using their cell phones, but apparently they didn't come because of the band.
A seemingly normal concert in Wuhan.
Pandemic, what was there?
As early as August, pictures from Wuhan caused a global sensation.
They showed people in a mood that one yearns back all over the world: in sociable exuberance.
Thousands of people celebrated a party in waist-high water in a fun pool.
In the central Chinese metropolis of all places, where the first corona infections were found in December
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Party in the water park: revelers in Wuhan
Photo:
STR / AFP
The bathing season is now over in Wuhan as well.
But in the bars, restaurants and museums, on the promenades and night markets of the city, social and cultural life has gotten going again - even if normality has not yet been fully restored.
What mark has the lockdown left?
"Only recently have I really felt that Wuhan is back on track," says 22-year-old band leader Yang Zongxun.
He wears long hair and a hooded sweater with the words "Kitzbühler Ski, local quality work".
His band now plays gigs like the one at Vox Live House every week.
He remembers her first appearance after the forced Corona break, which only took place in September: "The feeling was ambivalent. I was excited, but also panicked because we hadn't been on a stage for so long. But as soon as we play started, I forgot everything - and just enjoyed the moment. "
For Wang Yunpeng, work came back sooner - in fact, it never stopped entirely.
The Wuhaner brewery "Nr. 18 Brewing", for which he is responsible for marketing, had supplied its customers with craft beer through delivery men throughout the spring.
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Like every year, they brought a seasonal beer onto the market for the cherry blossom season in spring, but this time they came up with a name that caught on nationwide: Wuhan Jia Hazi You, which can be freely translated as "stay strong, Wuhan".
The residents had shouted these slogans from their balconies to each other during the lockdown.
The beer so named became a small symbol of the city's revival;
the orders that came in from all over China turned into an act of solidarity.
Their three taprooms in Wuhan reopened "No. 18 Brewing" on April 8, the day the lockdown was officially lifted.
"In April and May we had larger groups than usual," says Wang.
"People felt a need to come together and share their stories."
On the other hand, he did not observe any excesses: "I don't see that people drink more. But they want to interact more, they put their smartphones away."
Something has also changed for Wang personally.
Last year, he says, "No. 18 Brewing" was the first Chinese craft beer brewery to win gold in a competition in Germany.
"We thought we could represent China," he says.
"But with the pandemic, we realized that we were a local brewery. Nobody knew where Wuhan was before, now everyone knows."
He makes a noise that expresses resignation and defiance at the same time - everyone knows his city now, but there are few positive associations with it.
Anyway, that is how one can understand Wang.
"All of our employees come from here," he says.
"We have learned what binds us together."
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"Hepburn" night club in Wuhan in August 2020
Photo: Yan Cong / Bloomberg / Getty Images
In many of the conversations one can have in the city these days, this feeling comes through: We Wuhans carry a stigma through no fault of our own, but that cannot embarrass us - on the contrary, we make it part of our identity.
It's a feeling from veterans who find true understanding only in those who have endured the same thing.
"We are proud too, my family and I," says Timo Balz.
"Because we were right in the middle of it, we survived it together."
Born in Stuttgart, he has lived in the city for years and is professor of geodesy at Wuhan University.
He spent the months of the lockdown in isolation with his wife and children in their apartment.
The area around the campus, which he knows well, has changed since then: Many restaurants have not survived the fact that students stayed away.
Face-to-face teaching started again with the semester in September, now new ones are opening.
The café that Balz chose to meet has only existed for a few months: raw wood and high ceilings;
Hipsters with knitted hats order waffles and white coffee.
After the quarantine, Balz says, many Wuhans were reluctant to venture into company.
The fear was too deep.
Their fears seemed confirmed when authorities discovered a small cluster in May after 35 days with no new infections reported - and decided to test the entire population of eleven million people within two weeks.
"Only then did the city relax significantly," says Balz.
"It was almost like catharsis."
He wrote in his calendar when he and his family first went to a restaurant again, it was in July.
"I have the impression that people have become friendlier," says Balz.
"I don't know if that will last. Wuhan is not a friendly city."
Steel mills, punk music and bad swear words - that's what she is known for.
Javanese Air is also a bit rough.
Two macaw parrots are doing gymnastics at the bar's forged entrance gate; the operator has decorated the inside with Indonesian carvings, a mix of Neukölln corner pub and pirate ship.
Friday evening started slowly, but as the number of guests and alcohol levels increase, there is a happy noise around 11 p.m.
A game of dice in particular adds to the amusement, it is played at many tables, you don't have to think much and drink a lot.
The way home leads through a night market.
Sellers of grilled squid and spicy duck necks are packing up their stalls, a man has fallen asleep over a table on the sidewalk.
End of work at half past twelve.
The city is going out again, but it doesn't overdo it.
Maybe that's a lesson from Wuhan: the old life doesn't come back like at the push of a button once the authorities have declared the disease to be defeated.
Rather, it seems to be a gradual, tentative process that not all go along at the same pace.
Some old survive, some new arise, and some change remains.
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