In fact, I have been baffled all these years why Dalai Lama, and Tibetan Buddhism, has been taken by Americans so much. When I grew up in Hong Kong, I saw documentaries about pre-communist Tibet, and it looked like a living hell to me. The class system was so rigid. The Lamas were at the top and most people were at the bottom class. There were so many poor people that they fought for the left-over bones that the riches threw out after their meals, just to suck the merrow off the bone. That was quite a shocking scene to me, and I remember to this day.

If that documentary was shown in China, I would have discounted it as communist propaganda. But I saw it in Hong Kong during the 80's, when it was still a British colony. The media back then was not slanted towards China at all...in fact, it was probably as uncensored as you could find. At least much better than the media in the US.