In 1933, when James Hilton wrote the classic Lost Horizon, he probably never expected to leave generations asking the question: Where is Shangri-La? Even less could he have imagined his book erupting into a regional tourism dispute in western China, simultaneously igniting a platform for China's alternative culture movement. But that is exactly what has happened. Where is Shangri-La? Some say in Tibet. Others say Qinghai has more of that Tibetan feeling than Tibet, as if foreigners could determine better than Tibetans what Tibet should feel like. At the same time, a walled city in Yunnan called Dali claims that it is the original Shangri-La. Then, the nearby town of Lijiang, the ancient kingdom of the Naxi minority, discovered a stone tablet with the Chinese characters Xiang-ge-li-la - close enough to 'Shangri-La' - carved on it. So Lijiang advertised it was Shangri-La. Tourists poured in. Yet another county, Zhongdian, a mostly Tibetan-populated corner of northwest Yunnan, says it is Shangri-La, and cites the physical features described in Hilton's novel (Hilton never visited the region). So tourists started going there. Then, local governments in Sichuan said that Shangri-La was there. Four counties and four separate regions were soon locked in one of the most ironic disputes between regional governments in China's recent history, until the central government finally proclaimed one county, Zhongdian, the official Shangri-La. This brokered deal allowed the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and the Tibet region each to use the name Shangri-La for promotional purposes. In fact, none of the officials in any of China's self-proclaimed Shangri-Las had any idea that Hilton's book described a land of peace and ethnic harmony, which would draw from around the world those seeking spirituality and hoping to shed western material values. The officials were, instead, groping for tourist dollars by packaging, franchising and distributing Shangri-La as an attraction, in some ways threatening to turn China's national minorities into a freak show. While these officials were busy promoting their respective Shangri-Las, and while the central government was encouraging tourists and business to 'go west', a curious phenomenon occurred. Instead of attracting foreign multinationals, the Shangri-La pockets in western China began to attract China's own version of counter-culture. As old Beijing is bulldozed into oblivion, and replaced by faceless cement and blue glass, China's cultural capital looks ever more like Seoul. With its centralised control of the media, Beijing may still be China's artistic centre in commercial terms, but the creative mandate has dissipated to the western regions, where alternative lifestyles flourish along with activists promoting ethnic and environmental grassroots projects. I began asking my friends among Chinese artists about their own search for Shangri-La. Cheng Xingdong, a curator and adviser to international art collectors, said: 'Yunnan has become China's centre of alternative culture. Artists and intellectuals are now gathering there. It is a focal point of new ideas and creativity. The history of Yunnan is fusion. 'Yunnan was historically the borderland, where prisoners were banned. Han culture had to cross mountains to get there. Due to isolation, ethnic minority tribal culture persisted in its purity. Because of the multiethnicity of Yunnan, people there have a more open way of thinking, unlike in Beijing and Shanghai. Beijing as the ancient capital, the emperor's political epicentre, emanates mainstream culture. Shanghai, historically China's open port to the west, absorbs western ideas, but these are all of a commercial nature. Yunnan, however, is different.' Mr Cheng encouraged me to go to Yunnan. I had not visited the province for years. 'It is where people go to get away from the mainstream, to get away from commerce.' He suggested I meet some artist friends living in converted warehouses in Kunming, and studios in Dali and Lijiang. 'By the very nature of its environment, its isolation and multiethnicity, it is the borderland,' he said, scratching a few addresses and mobile phone numbers of artists on a piece of paper. 'This is where you go to find the alternative.' One day, I was sipping coffee in a Beijing Starbucks with pop singer Ai Jing, of My 1997 fame, and asked her about this Shangri-La movement. 'A coffee shop is like a 'peach garden beyond the realm',' she said dreamily. 'If you want to find a place which is more open and expansive, well everyone has this place in their mind, where they can feel freedom from the hassles of the city.' I began to think about this as I stared into a cup of cafe latte, looking for a connection to this peach garden thing. 'People talk of Shangri-La,' Ai Jing said. 'But there are many controversies over where it really is. If you want to search for it, I think it must be in western China. Take a road and follow it, just go without any direction.' If uncertain, she laughed, it could be found in a cup of latte if one looked carefully enough. In answer to Hilton's riddle, Shangri-La can be found in China anywhere in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, where the lifestyle protects as yet uncontaminated parts of our ecosystem. In travels through Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan, I talked to artists, dancers, musicians, pop singers, fashion designers, writers, environmental activists and monks - free, creative spirits inspired by this region, or working to save it. I learned from them that that Shangri-La is not just a place, but an ideal. You only have to find it. Laurence Brahm is producing, with composer San Bao and alternative film director Yang Tao, a multimedia documentary project on Shangri-La. searchingforshangri-la@redcapitalstudio.com