Even the Dalai Lama considers preservation to be the single most important achievement of the exile community. He points out that the pure form of culture is now found outside rather than inside Tibet (Powell 1992, 384). This is similar to Richardson's argument that the only hope of "keeping Tibetan characteristics and values alive" is in the refugee population, given that the new generations of Tibetans living inside Tibet are divorced from past ways of thinking; even though the nomadic population maintains old ways of life, they are rough and primitive (1998, 707-8). The idea that Tibetan culture in diaspora is more authentic than the one prevalent in Chinese-controlled Tibet is supported by a few factors. One of them is the passing down of cultural authority though the practice of reincarnation. A significant part of Tibetan culture and religion has been embodied within reincarnate lamas, the most important being the Dalai Lama himself. And many of them left Tibet to become a part of the diaspora. The struggle between the Dalai Lama and Beijing over the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama [82] reinforces the Dharamsala establishment's desire to prevent this process from getting into the wrong and "inauthentic" hands. While outside (read Chinese) influence is resisted, there have been instances where the practice has been deployed to incorporate ethnically non- Tibetan individuals as nang-pa (the Buddhist "insider"). [83]

The idea of true cultural authority as existing in exile rather than within Tibet is also validated by the presence of some great master craftsmen [84] who had been trained in their art in the "Old Tibet" and then moved to exile. These artists are regarded as "precious" since they are seen as having direct experience of "authentic Old Tibet." [85]Moreover, because of Exotica Tibet and a desire to gain Western support, the exile elite has tended to favor certain strands of Tibetan culture as more authentic and therefore worthy of patronage. For instance, cultural aspects highlighting sectarian differences are often underemphasized in favor of pan-Tibetan identity markers. Here, the ultimate cultural authority has come to be associated with the Dalai Lama himself (see Harris 1999).

An interrelated thematic aspect of the symbolic geography of Dharamsala is the role of memory in housing a distinct Tibetan identity. Exotica Tibet has directly influenced how Tibetans have constructed their memories of a lost homeland. The names of many establishments in Dharamsala-of not only Tibetan governmental and nongovernmental institutions but also commercial establishments-resonate with specifically Tibetan idioms. For instance, if one walks up the Jogibara Road from the Amnye Machen Institute to the right and Gaden Choeling Nunnery to the left, one finds names such as Amdo Cha-Chung Restaurant, Lhasa Tailors, Cafe Shambhala, Tsongkha Restaurant, Drepung Loseling Guest House, Tibet Lhoka Cafe, and so on. Similarly, on the Bhagsu Road starting from the bus stop, one comes across Potala Tours and Travels, Dhompatsang Boutique and Handicraft, Rangzen Cafe, Tara Cafe, and Tashi Kangsar Travel Lodge, to mention just a few. Other names, more directly influenced by Exotica Tibet, specifically deploy the ideas of loss and longing, such as the Tibet Memory Restaurant, Lhasa Tailors, Lhasa Hotel, and Hotel Tibet (the hotel belongs to the government-in-exile). It may be possible that an important factor influencing the naming practice could be the nostalgia for Tibet and the desire to create familiarity in strange places. If you don't find Tibetan names in Little Lhasa, where else can you expect to find them?

However, this dominant story of Little Lhasa as a temporary station where Tibetan culture is being preserved is highly problematic, both practically and theoretically. While in practical terms this simple story is complicated by the experiences of living as refugees, it is also open to serious theoretical challenges because of the unproblematic acceptance of a stylized understanding of the basic concepts of identity and culture.

Let us first take the theme of the preservation of Tibetan culture. Though the predominant emphasis remains on preserving tradition, the impact of drastic change in the context of cultural production is evident even in traditional areas. Unlike in Tibet, where monastic institutions were the sole custodian of religion, in the diaspora the task of preserving the culture is shared by modern institutions established by the exile administration (see Kolas 1996). Museums, libraries, and institutes established by the government-in-exile are considered repositories of authentic Tibetan culture. These are modeled on Western ideas of cultural preservation. The "culture of Tibet" is in a sense being constructed and objectified through the new institutions and through the ideas of "culture" itself. Particular ideas of Tibet, influenced by Exotica Tibet, are created and embedded in the exhibitionary forms of a range of cultural practices and institutions. A relatively fluid mixture of traditions is being bounded, fixed, and recorded much more efficiently than ever before. Maintaining and recreating a Tibetan identity in exile involves a self-conscious display of Tibetan Buddhist religion and an organized construction of Tibetan culture. As Kolas argues, "Contained within secular institutions, religious expressions have become the objects of Tibetan culture, which represent Tibetan identity to the outside world" (1996, 58-59). This attempt to preserve traditional culture in the modern world has inevitably led to a secularization and objectification of it. [86] Capturing the spirit of "Old Tibet," after all, involves a selective construction of traditions. For instance, when discussing the various styles of Tibetan painting, Harris points out that the dominant style is new Menri whose purity is at best "a series of re-inventions" (1999, 69; emphasis in original). The traditional cultural practices are often laden with contemporary political meanings. [87]

Without belittling these attempts at maintaining distinctive traditions of creative and artistic expression, at a theoretical level this overemphasis on preservation should also be seen as being conceptually problematic because it takes a sanitized view of what culture means. Culture is seen as a thing out there that can be identified, mapped, practiced, and preserved. Such a conceptualization of culture essentializes and naturalizes what is socially and politically constructed and contested. It ignores the fact that culture is a "dynamic mix of symbols, beliefs, languages and practices which people create, not a fixed thing or entity governing humans" (Anderson and Gale 1992, 3). Cultural identities, far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, are actually subject to the continuous play of history, culture, and power. Tibetan culture is as much a process as it is a product of particular historical processes. An explicit recognition of this would certainly challenge the dominant tendency to make exilic "Tibet" fit Exotica Tibet.

The effect of commodification and tourism on particular expressions of "authentic" Tibetan culture is also important. As Wood argues, tourism affects not only the ways in which ethnic identities are asserted but also which ethnic markers are chosen to symbolize group membership and culture (1998, 222). The desire to attract tourists has played a significant role in the depiction of Dharamsala as the Little Lhasa.