But Tibetan students and their teachers in this northern Indian hill town, home to exiled Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, still dream of what they regard as their 'promised land.' Their school, known as the 'Tibetan Children's Village,' is a centre of Tibetan nationalism set up just after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
'We teach the children to be good Tibetans,' said Phurbu Dolma, who teaches kindergarten in this complex in Dharamshala, which has around 2,000 students and 300 employees and is funded by donations and non-governmental organisations.
The junior and high school is vital to preserving Tibetan identity, culture and history nearly six decades after Chinese forces invaded the vast Himalayan region, prompting tens of thousands of Tibetans to flee to India, teachers say.
'I've heard lots about Tibet, and thanks to my parents the place runs in my veins. Even if I wasn't born there, Tibet is my country,' said science teacher Tenzin Ngodup.
'We're exiles along with our government and this school is preserving our culture and traditions to instruct a new generation,' said Mr Ngodup, 38, who was born in India like most of the 20,000 Tibetans in Dharamshala.
The school boasts light-filled classrooms, harmoniously designed buildings and treed courtyards.
The Dalai Lama calls the children at the school 'the seeds of future Tibet.' India is home to around 100,000 Tibetans, the largest Tibetan population in exile in the world.
India has given them sanctuary on condition that they do not use the country as a base for anti-Chinese activities.
Students at the school in Dharamshala say the sense of Tibetan identity has become even stronger since the eruption two weeks ago of the most intense protests against Beijing's rule in nearly two decades.
'We want to go to Tibet when it is free,' said 16-year-old Choezin, who was born in India and who only knows the geography of Tibet thanks to maps, photographs and paintings that adorn the walls.
His friend Choeyang came to Dharamshala when she was a baby in her parents' arms like thousands of others who arrive each year after making an arduous and often dangerous trek through the Himalayas.
Choeyang's parents put her in the school and then headed back to the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
'I haven't seen them for 15 years, she said.
'In Tibet we could not go to Tibetan schools and learn Tibetan,' said Choezin.
Since the latest unrest erupted, the Dalai Lama has repeated accusations that Tibet is a victim of 'a kind of cultural genocide", with Beijing pouring in tens of thousands of Han Chinese to swamp its unique traditions.
He says the population change in his homeland is leading inexorably to the 'death of a nation.' From the age of three, the children at the school on Dharamshala learn Tibetan, English and arithmetic and later India's official language Hindi.
'But one day they must go to Tibet... even if India is a good country it is not our own - we will go to Tibet, said 34-year-old teacher Dolma.
For the moment 'I watch the events in Tibet on television. But my cousins are there and I want to join them,' she said with a smile.
Like the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans at the school stress they do not consider the Chinese to be enemies.
'But the whole world knows that we are Tibetan... Tibet is very different from China,' said computer science teacher Tserang Phuntsok. -- AFP