![]() ![]() ![]() When they arrive, their passports are taken from them by their employers and their wages are frequently withheld. Migrant workers from Asia and Africa are told they will receive high wages and free visits to family at home. This mirage of a modern-day Shangri-La is used by Dubai and its benefactors to hide a rotting underbelly of a deteriorating metropolis struggling to sustain its own existence. It may seem like paradise to any unassuming spectator scrolling through clickbait articles. Its citizens get free healthcare and live lives of extraordinary luxury. ![]() ![]() The city’s police force includes million-dollar supercars and many residents even have maids. For most, it is seen as a place of extravagant wealth and extreme excess. While Hilton placed Shangri-La in the Himalayas, the name has also been used to refer to Dubai, the real world-renowned city that sits south of Saudi Arabia in the United Arab Emirates. His brother George instead saw it as a prison that the two must escape from. Conway saw it as a place of peace where he could relax after his dangerous journey. In 1933, the English author James Hilton wrote a novel titled “ Lost Horizon” about a diplomat named Hugh Conway and his journeys that end at Shangri-La, a mythical utopia filled with gentle residents who live for hundreds of years. ![]()
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