Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is someone who discusses his experience with dangerous tourism and geopolitics. He shares some of the most fascinating stories of his travel and what we observed and learned from each nation.
Make sure to check our previous conversation as well if you haven’t.
North & South Korea
“I didn’t know you could go to North Korea. I had a friend from Korea who was an Intern at Embassy in Delhi. She was killed in the submarine about 4-5 years back. I saw a picture of her before that on FaceBook, and we spoke, and she told me how to get there.”
“I had been to South Korea when I was young. I visited when South Korea was democratizing. The information age was beginning there. The business was growing there. And after that, I have been there back and forth because I love the food there. Being foreign, maybe I saw more differences between North and South Korea.”
“North Korea is not as closed as shown by the Western media. The Western media dehumanizes and demonism regimes that they don’t like. Near North Korea, people will come up to you and talk. For me, North Korea brought home a lot more horrible truths about India. The feminine in North Korea was somewhat natural, and in some provinces, the food was not being sent because they weren’t loyal to the leader back then and preferred food supplied by the capitalist. It disturbed me to see the people still suffering.”
Chat GPT & AI
“There was a lot of Soviet influence on us. We had history lessons about them. Now the time has changed. We had STD and Trunk calls. We have gone from there to mobile phones now. I have seen the change. The computer system has changed.”
“I hate Chat GPT. It has already started lying. It has a learned behavior. AI in defense is well-controlled AI. We have a visual image of a battle on a screen. AI has been trained to find the best possible path. It has made life easy. Our government is working on getting a search engine like Google and a system like Android because all the information stored on our phones can help other nations to spy on us. UPI is a massive thing started by India.”
Syria
“All my visits to Syria were before the Civil War. I was evacuated in 2006. I was in a university to learn Arabic. It is my favorite country in the Middle East. Syrian food is sophisticated. It is culturally rich and has a lot of History. You are walking on where the Mongol armies came from. The Turkish army came. Jesus probably walked there. It has rich architecture.”
What Went Wrong In Syria
“It is largely a Sunni majority. But it had a powerful Christian and a Shia sect of Islam. The Christians and Shia got together to overpower Sunni. The French wanted an artificial Christian majority, so they created Lebanon. The minorities there owned most of the businesses.”
“Syria is modern. But it was a dictatorship. I had historical conversations with people. There is a limit to what could be damaged. The main reason was climate change. There was a prolonged period of drought in the North area where the Sunnis lived. And a population movement happened from the North to the South because of this. The demographic balance was a shock. Things started to become worst. Then the war started between Shia and Sunni.”
“It was a civil war. The Sunnis started to gather against the Shia and Christians. Iraq was a Shia majority with a Sunni ruling class. So they wanted a Sunni state as they were already in the majority. Everybody started interfering. If other countries didn’t interfere, the Syrian forces would have taken care of this.”
“A lot of what is shown in the media is propaganda. The group is trying to say not to cross them. ISIS and Al-Qaeda all do this. I still have friends there. It is largely peaceful except for the North. Once the zone is still under Turkey’s control.”
Visiting China
“China is one of the countries, I think, I have failed. In other countries, I have had honest conversations with people and made friends. I didn’t enjoy my time there. I have come across some of the sweetest people and racist people as well. Today the people there are so scared to have an honest conversation because they don’t know who is listening. China is the only country where my experience was negative.”
Thank You for reading.
Read Next:
I’ve been living in Korea and China for the past year and a half and I have to say that I have had an amazing experience. The people are so friendly and the culture is so different but in a good way. I’ve never
I’ve been living in Korea and China for the past year and a half and I have to say that I have had an amazing experience. The people are so friendly and the culture is so different but in a good way. I’ve never