Lockdown ends as spring blooms

The sun was shining brightly on the first Sunday morning after the lockdown in Wuhan when I decided to take a walk along East Lake.

Before I left my community, security guards at the gate still needed to take my temperature, check my work certificate and my green code handed out by the government to each Hubei resident to prove I was in good health.

I rode a shared bicycle to the lake and saw just a few people at this popular spot, maybe just one-third the usual number.

The lake was sparkling in the sun. I took a deep breath and my thoughts took me to April 8 when the old bell rang at midnight at the Jianghan Guan, a landmark built in 1924 in Wuhan, heard by millions of its residents through live-broadcast on TV, signaling the moment Wuhan came back to life.

On the first morning of the city's restart, I went out for an interview during peak hours, only to find that streets didn't appear as crowded as before. About one-quarter of the usual vehicles were on a main road, with few pedestrians on the sidewalks.

The interview ended at 9:30 am, and I waited for more than 20 minutes to find a taxi.

"How come so few taxis are on the road after the lockdown has been lifted?" I asked the taxi driver.

"As you can see, not so many people are coming out, so neither do drivers. They don't want to run empty while burning up gasoline. Another reason would be that some of the taxis may have rested for a long time and need repair," he said.

Passing a construction site, I saw a crane had started working. However, along Hanjie, a commercial street, I found very few people hanging around shopping malls and most shops were still closed.

A common wish among Wuhan people was to eat bowls of hot dry noodles after the lockdown was lifted－and so was mine.

I asked the driver to take me to the restaurant that I usually visited. I expected a binge eating experience, only to find that it was closed, too.

Then I decided to go to a supermarket near my home to buy some daily necessities. At the entrance, everyone lined up quietly for health checks and nobody complained.

It was good to see that the supermarket offered adequate supplies, including fresh vegetables, fruit and milk, at normal prices.

After purchasing some groceries, I talked with the property manager of my community.

"Why are the efforts to control and inspect the virus not reduced?" I asked.

She told me that the government required it to be so.

"We must not relax our guard and should implement the order that if it is unnecessary, people should not go out. Some residents do not understand us, but most of them support our work," she said.

At the entrance of my community, deliverymen were handing takeout orders to their customers, but only through the fence.

A gym manager sent me a message that the gym was expected to open in early May. Due to crowds, gyms are still not allowed to reopen.

Four days after the lockdown ended, an increasing number of vehicles and people could be seen on the streets in Wuhan.

However, walking along East Lake, I still felt that almost everything was the same, but some inarticulate things had changed.

A gentle breeze blew through the budding willows as well as against my face. At that very moment, I had a strong sense of insecurity.

It occurred to me that people who had gone through a 76-day shutdown still needed to reassure themselves psychologically that everything was back to normal. The city is waking up silently, just like the spring.

Li Hongyang contributed to this story.