Chengdu: Loud music, dim lighting, exquisitely dressed men and women, and a dance floor packed with writhing bodies - surely, this disco in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, looks quite different from how it, and the rest of the city, appeared in the days following the May 12 earthquake.

However, the DJ would still grab every opportunity between sets to seize the microphone and issue a plea in the thick drawl of his local dialect: "Friends, our club is a building with a solid frame and structure, which withstood the tests of earthquakes and aftershocks. So if another aftershock shakes the building, don't panic; just keep dancing."

A month after the disaster, the city, which is known for its laid-back demeanor and slow pace of life, is struggling to reclaim its pre-quake prosperity and tempo. The metropolis' residents, known for being self-centered, slack and almost hedonistically indulgent in life's pleasures, are now licking their wounds - and doing so in their own way.

While many tourist-oriented bars and cafs have yet to reopen their doors, those discos, dance clubs and karaoke bars targeting the local market are beginning to recover. Teahouses, which are the primary venues of Chengdu-ers' social lives, are again seething with people.

"But not all of them," says Gu Jian, a civil servant with Chengdu's Qingyang district. "Since the quake, people have been avoiding teahouses in high-rises or underground air shelters (most of which were built in the 1960s). People are more prone to go to open spaces, areas such as parks, riverbanks and squares."

The consequence is that mahjong and card games, which are known as staples of the Chengdu lifestyle, are back in full swing.

"To be honest, these games never left our lives," Gu says. "I'm a civil servant, and personally, I have never played mahjong or any card games since May 12, and won't play in the near future."

But the 38-year-old says he's an exception to the rule. In his mother's neighborhood, he says, four elderly residents broke out the mahjong table within two hours of the 8.0-magnitude quake. Three days later, his mother, a retired official, joined them.

"Since my father died several years ago, mahjong has been her best companion," Gu says. "After the quake, she stayed with my wife and me in my car for two nights. But she just couldn't wait to get back to the mahjong table.

"Of course I wouldn't accuse these people of being calloused towards the devastation. They just need some way to calm their nerves."

However, Gu says, there is a difference in the way they play since the disaster.

"They aren't using the most popular combination of stakes - 5 (0.5 yuan), 1 (10 yuan), 2 (20 yuan) and 4 (40 yuan, which is eponymous with "death" in the local dialect)."

A week after the disaster, Chen Wenzhong and his wife Zhao Shixu, 72, resumed their mahjong regiment of three gatherings a week with friends, a bid to escape the city's oppressively muggy summer weather.

"I was staying at my brother's summer home in Dujiangyan with my brother and sister when the quake struck," Zhao said. "It scared me so much that I'm still sensitive to trembling and get nervous when people bounce their legs while sitting near me.

"But life goes on. After the quake, my oldest son rushed to Dujiangyan in his car and spent hours locating us among the chaos. My younger son called me from Beijing every day, and relatives and friends called one after another.

"For the first time in the past several years, I felt the true importance of family and friends. The disaster's positive impact on our lives, I believe, is to bring us closer."

Some of their neighbors are still missing at a scenic spot in one of the hardest-hit areas, and one of their friends died while holidaymaking in Yinchanggou, a summer resort in the city's Pengzhou county.

They were surprised to learn an elderly center at which they'd hoped to purchase priority use of a standard room, in Chongzhou district, which was hit hard by the quake, has surged in popularity.

"Originally, the owner offered us the priority use for 34,000 yuan (US$4,906) without any auxiliary conditions. Now, he says we must stay there at least half a year every year," Chen, 73, says. "That's because many summer resorts targeting the elderly in neighboring counties were destroyed by the quake."

But the center is among few businesses to benefit from the quake. Locals engaged in the tourism business are grappling with a business slump owing to the "psychological shadow" the quake cast over the city.

Local taxi driver Wang Yong says local cabbies' daily incomes have decreased by 100 yuan to 200 yuan since the number of tourists dropped sharply in the wake of the disaster.

"We don't wait at park entrances for business like we used to," he says. "No one has asked me to drive them to a scenic area outside of Chengdu since the quake."

Hu Xiaoding owns an inn with 63 standard rooms on the eighth and ninth floors of a commercial building near the Jinjiang River, one of the city's top tourist attractions. It had been quite popular with tourists on a budget, "but not a single guest checked into my hotel in the first week after the quake," Hu says. "A month later, only a quarter of the rooms are occupied. During the same period of last year, my hotel was fully booked."

While the image of the area as devastated has marred Chengdu's tourism, it has given some local businesspeople a leg up.

Zhang Ning is a railway inspection equipment supplier. On May 18, the 49-year-old left the city for a competitive bid in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. There, he enjoyed the advantage of being the only supplier from "quake-affected areas".

"Everyone was interested in hearing about my personal experiences during the quake. They asked questions, listened to my stories and were amazed by Chengdu residents' puckish and humorous approach to facing the disaster. As a result, I won the bid."

In fact, the businessman says he never felt as if he was living in a "disaster-hit area".

"To me, the city is just nearby (to 'disaster-hit areas')," he says.

The tennis buff also says he had resumed his regiment of playing with friends two or three times a week.

"The only difference is that after the games, we go to better restaurants for our meals, because everyone is more optimistic about life after the quake," Zhang says. "Believe me, the city will recover quicker than outsiders could ever imagine."

(China Daily June 10, 2008)