It's 9pm on Friday night and the owners of two restaurants, facing each other, get outside at the same time. For a while, they stay silent, awkwardly stare at each other (first the owner, then the restaurant).
"How's business?" One owner finally breaks the silence.
"Are you blind? Are you mocking me? Do you see any customers inside? I wouldn't be sitting here if business is good."
"Same for me. I thought the pandemic is over and things is getting back to normal."
"When you say normal you mean the way things were before the pandemic? Even normal has a new definition now."
"People should be itching to gather and spend money after being forced to stay at home for 3 years. What happened? Government officials gave their assurance."
"Where are they? Shouldn't they set an example and visit restaurants more often? Or have they imposed a curfew without telling us?"
"I guess they are afraid of running into someone who have negative views of them."
"I thought the city has 'went from chaos to order, from order to prosperity'. The troublemakers have either left town, put behind bars or sealed their mouths. If anyone dares to get in the face of officials they would be free to order from the prison menu in the foreseeable future. Perhaps indefinitely."
"Didn't the government just announced that there is a spike in population since the pandemic restrictions were lifted? There should mean a lot more customers."
"You are right. 'Should be'. Where are they? They can't all stay at home all the time."
"Hold on. The phone in my restaurant is ringing." The first owner walks inside and picks up the phone.
"Hello. You want to cancel the reservation? Are you sure? You are forfeiting the deposit ... No problem. It's been cancelled."
The first owner gets back outside and finds the second owner still sitting outside. "You are still sitting here?"
"Why should I get back in? There's no customer inside and all the staff are playing with their phones. I don't blame them though."
"A customer had planned to hold a private party in my restaurent this weekend. He just cancelled the reservaion and hold the party up north instead."
"You are not alone. A lot of my long-time customers are spending most of their weekends in the city up north. I guess they are heeding the government officials' call to get entertained in the north."
"I heard of that too. It seems they spend most of the time touting the positives of the city north of us."
"If I only hear their voices, I would mistake them for officials from the city up north."
"If pitching for the city up north is part of their job, they are doing it brilliantly. Perhaps too brilliantly. Maybe that's where all the extra population have gone to."
"As if that's not bad enough, security officials keep reminding us that the city is still a dangerous place. According to them the city is still full of 'black thugs', 'soft resistance', 'separtists' and 'agents foreign forces', waiting to resurface. What kind of visitor would dare to come and spend money in such a dangerous place? Even the locals would hesistate to spend money. Why would people spend money when they could be shopping at places which 'sponsor fugitives in national security'?"
"It seems bleak at the moment, but officials are trying to revive businesses during the night time. They are thinking of introducing night markets. They are very popular at a number of cities."
"If the people living here don't spend locally and visitors don't come, wouldn't that split the pie into more pieces and our slice become smaller?"
"Haven't thought of that."
"And operating at a night marker would likely to be cheaper than operating a business like ours. At least they would pay a lot less rent."
"Decoration would become redundant and they wouldn't need any service staff"
"Just because that worked 50 years ago doesn't mean it would work today. It seems those who proposed the idea are trying to recreate what they experienced in their youth. Why don't they ditch their computers and mobile phones, cut their internet service and replace their OLED TV with one made of cathode ray tube as well?"
The second owner suddenly stands up and makes a call. "What are you doing?" asks the first owner.
"I am checking how much it costs to buy a food trolley."
"You are thinking of closing down the restaurant and become a hawker?"
"Why not? I used to be a hawker. I'm just following the government's lead and go backwards."