WUHAN, China (AP) – The noodles smothered in peanut sauce are as much a trademark of Wuhan as deep-dish pizza in Chicago or spaghetti in Rome. Zhou Guoqiong still isn’t allowed to serve customers inside her shop, but the stream of eager customers now lining up outside to take away those noodles testifies to the powerful desire to savor the familiar again after the easing of months of strict lockdown.
Despite radically falling numbers of coronavirus infections, officials emphasize that Wuhan and the rest of China still have a long way to go. But the reappearance of Wuhan’s favorite breakfast noodles is a tasty sign that life is slowly beginning to transition to normal in the Chinese city that served as the original epicenter of the global outbreak, first detected in December.
Five days after reopening, Zhou and her husband now sell several hundred bags of “reganmian,” or “hot dry noodles,” every day – less than before the outbreak, but more than enough to keep them busy.
“I’m happy as long as there is business,” Zhou said.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, women wearing protective masks to prevent the new coronavirus outbreak chat with each other outside a Lego store at a re-opened commercial street in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province on Monday, March 30, 2020. Shopkeepers in the city at the center of China’s virus outbreak were reopening Monday but customers were scarce after authorities lifted more of the anti-virus controls that kept tens of millions of people at home for two months. (Shen Bohan/Xinhua via AP)Wuhan has recorded 2,548 deaths from the coronavirus and reported more than 50,000 cases, and the city essentially shut down starting Jan. 23.