Tibet probably ranks high in many people's list as a place for which they feel a close affinity but know next to nothing about.
For instance, I recently sent a book of old photographs on Tibet to a friend's mother, an American. She told me later that she enjoyed it very much but was disappointed to see one photo of a group of men proudly posing for the camera with swords and firearms at their side, with a picture caption that said, 'Tibetan Bandits." She had hoped that Tibet would be the one place where something as mundane as crime didn't exist.
I'm sure that pictures of European highwaymen or American robbers like Jesse James or Bonnie and Clyde would not have the effect of changing her perception of those countries. But somehow, the unethical and often violent behaviour involved in committing successful banditry was difficult for my friend's mother to assimilate into the niche that Tibet occupied in her mind. And in my experience as a Tibetan who has lived in the West for more than 25 years, the Tibetan niche in the minds of many Westerners is very similarly informed or, in my opinion, ill-informed.
This ubiquitous fantasy of Tibet as a realm where a "beautiful" people live in a transcendental state is more like the perceiver's personal inner yearning than an appreciation of a nation. What's not clear, however, is if this view of Tibet springs from a need to believe that somewhere on earth, a place exists where life continues in a blissful state of innocence or whether it is a desire to believe that, Tibetan people live in a perpetual nirvana induced by mental high technology.