Chinese people are back to their normal lives as they have started to meet up with friends, go out at night to bars and parties. The bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and beach venues in the country are opening up to welcome customers after months of lockdowns. 

In Chinese capital city Beijing, bars and restaurants are becoming busy again. As Financial Times reported, residents feel like "they have earned the 'freedom to party' after months of strict social distancing from the beginning of this year."

China has moved to the post COVID-19 era, as infections have been controlled and testing has become systematic and effective. 

In Wuhan several months ago, the streets were all but deserted, except for government vehicles and delivery drivers ferrying food and supplies. Hospitals were overrun with patients. A city of 11 million, Wuhan was locked down for two months starting in late January, which helped stamp out the virus at its initial epicenter. Hubei Province and its capital city Wuhan accounted for most of China's 83,531 coronavirus cases and 4,634 deaths. 

But now the mood around China is in a very obvious contrast with much of the rest of the world. The U.S. is in deepened misery by pandemic and economic downturns, while India just jumped to the second-worst-hit country before Brazil. Bars and clubs in other parts of the world outside China are under strict closing measures since they were blamed for spreading the virus. Clubs have been at the center of coronavirus flare-ups in other Asian cities. A cluster of cases linked to clubs emerged in South Korea this month, triggering fears of a second wave of infections and leading to clubs and bars being shut again.

The return to revelry in China was made possible after local governments gradually relaxed their strong epidemic measures. There have been two digit, daily symptomatic cases in mainland China, apart from an outbreak in Xinjiang. Across China, people have resumed normal work and studies, as well as social life. In Guangzhou, Shanghai, Sanya and Chengdu, entertainment businesses resumed as residents' normal life returned. 

At 44KW, a club for electronic music lovers in the financial hub of Shanghai, customers sat, danced and mingled with little sign of social distancing on the weekend. The club re-opened in mid-March after closing for about six weeks, but it took awhile for business to get back to normal.

"There really weren't many clients as most people were quite worried about their safety," said Charles Guo, founder of 44KW.

"Our client flow began to recover quickly towards the end of April," Guo said, adding that business was back to last year's average levels by mid-May.

When the disease was discovered and confirmed in Wuhan for the first time, cities across China introduced strict lockdowns, quarantines and compulsory mask wearing to prevent the spread of the virus.

According to a Financial Times' interview with Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, noted China, to have this level of social life whilst keeping transmission low, suggests it had the right protective measures in place and a good "test, trace and isolate" system. 

"It is a fascinating potential insight into how we could do things differently [in Western countries]," Michie said. 

"In Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged eight months ago, water parks and night markets are packed elbow to elbow, buzzing like before," wrote New York Times China Correspondent Javier C. Hernandez in an article published on August 23.

China's factories are humming again and its economy has resumed growth. The NYT admitted that this is a "stark turnabout from the early days of the pandemic" when China was the first to experience the COVID-19 epidemic.

Chinese people's returning to entertainment marks an extraordinary achievement fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, given China is getting close to eliminating COVID-19 despite being a densely populated country of around 1.4 billion people. Now, it appears the strict measures and lockdowns are starting to pay off. 

(With inputs from agencies)