In keeping with the Digital Age, we lifted Luke’s article for this month off his honeymoon/travel blog, where we can all see the photos of him and his lovely bride, read about their travels, reassure ourselves that they are safe and send them messages.

Then, after they come home, they get to keep it as a honeymoon/travel diary.

Doncha just love the interwebs? - Eds.

Today, after a three day cruise on the Yangtze that culminated in a half a day spent touring the Three Gorges Dam, we arrived in Yichang .

The Three Gorges Dam is an awe inspiring piece of work. It is, in every way, huge - power generation, amount of concrete, environmental impact, number of people relocated or towns inundated, all just mind-numbingly huge.

Engineering on a massive scale has always fascinated me, and the Three Gorges Dam was on the list of must visits for a long time.

Today however, the impact of the dam on my psyche was pushed aside somewhat by what I saw occurring in Yichang, the town at the foot of the wall.

The Yangtze river is the longest river in China and slices the bottom half of the country through the middle. Only slightly less romanticised than its Yellow brother further north, the best known section of the Yangtze is the six hundred or so muddy brown kilometres that ooze their way from Chongqing to Yichang, through the colossal Three Gorges.

Given its status as the end point for such an epic journey, and its mostly unremarkable history, it’s probably understandable that Yichang is given scant regard by guidebooks as a destination worth any time. But today Yichang gave us a glimpse into the dark heart of an oppressed population that I was completely unprepared for.

Our cruise finished in Yichang, as most do and we were all but obliged to spend the night here. So, without expecting much, we wandered into town to have something to eat.

As the sun went down nothing seemed to stop, in fact the activity seemed to shift gear decidedly upwards. After dinner we decided to have a bit of a wander around town, and, slowly, we started to notice odd things around us. People were dressed really well. They looked healthy. Children were full of energy; faces, t-shirts and footpaths were spotless. People selling their wares in the street weren't hassling us to buy. For the first time in China, it seemed that their life didn't depend on our ten cent purchase and we were able to walk down a market street and just enjoy looking around.

What really opened our eyes, however, was that every corner seemed to offer a new shopping strip. It became impossible to figure out where the CBD was. Not only that, but shops were being built and fitted out at a speed usually associated with the demolition, not construction of buildings.

Row upon row of gleaming shop front was lit up with gangs of people inside, simultaneously building shelves, stocking shelves, building counters and putting up signs. Here, in all it’s glory, was the coalface of China's economic miracle.

It would be easy to say that these shops may disappear just as quickly as they arrived, and who knows, maybe they will. But at a time when the rest of the world is fully engaged in an economic duck and cover, a hitherto unknown backwater is able to sustain the construction of what seems like twenty to thirty new clothes shops a night!

Now, we all know about China's political system. The history of the revolution and its various helmsmen and architects is well documented and oft lamented, with the Chinese having had to suffer such oxymoronic periods of history as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. While not even the current Chinese Government maintains its previous line that these were anything but failures, the world 'knows' that Chinese people have no freedom. They are repressed and cloistered. They can't vote, can’t use wikipedia and they’re not allowed to become scientologists.

So, how do the Chinese people in this particular town cope with such a lack of basic liberties and denial of human rights?

Well, they dance. In their thousands.

Along the route home lay a town square. A Chinese town square is just that, a large expanse of concrete, usually dotted with tracts of grass and water features, with nary a restaurant, bar, huge television or shopping mall entrance in sight.

After business hours, when they’re no longer required as a thoroughfare, almost every comparable Australian public space is generally given over to the homeless, aimless and helpless, and judiciously avoided by those of us who know better. So it was with some amusement that we found ourselves in one of the last bastions of Communism being drawn towards a large public square full of people at about nine o'clock at night.

At first we thought there must be some sort of play or event taking place. Maybe they were screening reruns of the world cup?

No, there were thousands of people gathered into groups, dancing.

In one area people were waltzing, in another, a square formation of people was occupied with a more traditional fan dance. Others were square dancing, and on it went. Those that weren’t dancing were playing hacky-sack, or just watching and smiling. We were mesmerised. Never had we seen such a large body of people that seemed to be so, well, collectively, free. Free to do as they pleased. Free to dance.

Maybe this is all just rose-coloured glasses, and we're all old enough to know that things should not be taken on face value. Maybe they are all people from the same work unit who are allowed out on Monday nights to practice for the factory dance off in the hope of increasing their food ration. Maybe none of them want to dance, maybe they'd prefer to be at home looking at wikipedia, or reading Wild Swans.

Well, if that's the case, I'll swap them my broadband modem and copy of verboten literature for the chance to gather with strangers on a balmy evening in a beautiful city and dance like I just don't care.

+ 1

+ 1