"We still have to wait and see. Just because they lifted the travel advisory doesn't mean a lot of people will come to Beijing," said a taxi driver surnamed Wang.
Waiting outside a supermarket for customers with several other cab drivers in their long row of taxis, Wang and others said SARS convinced many people to purchase their own cars, citing reports that 1,000 more cars had been
sold each day in the already traffic congested city since the disease broke out.
"A lot more people are riding bicycles," said Wang, as he watched several customers come out of the supermarket, dump their small bags of groceries in their bicycle baskets and ride off.
People in the service and tourism sectors said it could be a long time before they begin to see a recovery in their businesses.
Longtime masseur Li Tianlu has been out of work without salary for two months.
He remains unsure of when he can go back to work. His profession is considered high-risk for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as it involves close contact with customers.
"Customers won't return immediately. We don't even know what SARS is yet even though the numbers have gone down," said Li, who works in a hotel.
"Most customers in our hotel are people who are travelling to Beijing because they have to."
Unable to wait out the epidemic period, which officials said began in Beijing in late March and has killed 191 people in the Chinese capital, many people in the service industry changed profession in order to survive.
In one of Beijing's most popular tourist sites, the Forbidden City, managers said Tuesday the number of visitors has picked up in the past week, but was nowhere near the level it was before the pneumonia-like respiratory disease hit the capital.
"From last weekend to today, there has already been an increase in visitors. Now we have about 3,000 people a day. In late April to early May, the most severe period, only 100 to 300 came each day," said an official surnamed Chen at the office of the former residence for emperors.
"The number of visitors has rebounded by 10 times. But in previous years, we would see an average of 30,000 each day. It's hard to say when it will recover to that level," said Chen, who declined to give his full name.
Out of the 3,000 people who visit the museum each day, very few are foreigners, he noted.
Economists have said it could take until the end of the year before foreigners feel that it is safe to visit China.
Other Beijingers, however, said life is already back to normal.
"My boss had to cut my salary in half for the month of May because we weren't getting any business, but it was not a big problem for me," said Li Hongbo, who works in a publishing company.
"SARS won't have a long-term impact on China, except that people will probably keep practicing good hygiene," he said.
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/bh/Qhealth-sars-china-people.RKL__DuO.html
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