Shangri-La and the West: the myth of Tibet in western media and culture in the period of modernity

Abstract

A web-page search on Alta Vista the 4th of March, 2001 gave some striking results. "Shangri-La" gave 53,132 hits. There were references lo Lost Horizon, the tourist industry, music, and journalistic metaphors, among other things. "Lhasa" gave 62,132 hits, and “Tibet" 815,295. The most fascinating result, however, was "Shambhala". The name of an old Tibetan myth of a sacred and secret place ruled by a glorious king, gave 16,532,650 hits - 19 times more than the real Tibet and Lhasa all together. And there were mainly references to meditation centers in the United States. This can be seen as a typical sign of the modern world. The New Age movement and other "alternative" ways of living and thinking are attracting large groups of people today. However, these particular search results from the Internet have a history of more than 200 years. It is a phenomenon developed in the West - both by solitary persons and by the Western society in general. Consequently, when James Hilton wrote the novel Lost Horizon in 1933, he captured the popular imagination developed through history. He gathered stereotypes from the literature, and captured the rumours about the sacred Tibet among the common run of people. Thus, his Shangri-La attained great success, and the concept was soon taken into current English usage. This constituted the very peak of the Western myth of Tibet, and it has, undoubtedly, removed the attention away from the real situation in the occupied country "at the roof of the world". As Donald S. Lopez points out, Tibetans are "Prisoners of Shangri-La". From Lopez’ book (1998) with the same title.