Locked away in its mountain fortress of the Himalaya, Tibet has long exercised a unique hold on the imagination of the West. Shangri-La? Is it the Land of Snows? The Rooftop of the World? Asia's Watertower? A place where everyone lives in a state of Nirvana? Slave State? Is it a Religious Slave State where for centuries the Lamas enslaved everyone else? Chinese Vassel? Is it a horror story where the Tibetan culture has been totally destroyed by the Chinese Invaders? It is none of, and perhaps all of, the above. It is somewhere in between these extremes.