Shangri-La is a word created by British author James Hilton in his 1933 novel "Lost Horizon", which won popularity at a time when the Second World War made people disappointed with the real life.

Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient.

The use of the term Shangri-La is frequently cited as a modern reference to Shambhala, a mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which was sought by Eastern and Western explorers; Hilton was also inspired by then-current National Geographic articles on Tibet, which referenced the legend.

That is why even today Tibetan is always been imagined as an absolutely pure and peaceful place where there should not be any modernity. However, literature is romantic while the life is all about reality. And people living anywhere need to improve their living standard, and Tibetan people should be no exception.

The myth of Tibet was once so strong that people christened Shangri-La. So the fantasts are disappointed and they accuse the change for all kinds of reasons. They curse the economic development which they believe would destroy the original environment; they attempt to stop communcations between different ethnic groups, which they believe would interfering the primitive state of Shangri-la.

Maybe their wishes can be understandable, but that does little help to relieve Tibetan people from poverty and misery.

Luckily, some westerners have realized that. Just like writer Brauen points out, "Tibetans are spoiled in a way by the West, because they are always represented in a positive way." Brauen says that for a long time Tibetans barely even knew about their fortunate image abroad, and have only recently begun to worry about the stereotypes they've been stuck with.

"Indeed, the Land on the Roof of the World is a place that exists not only on this planet but in our minds," said an essay on lifestyle.inquirer.net.