Life is difficult on the Tibetan plateau any time of year, in the winter it is a real challenge. Tibetans live with no access to heating fuel. For cooking they often burn yak dung. There is little running water and no hot water except what is carried about in thermos bottles. It seems the thermos bottle is China's great contribution to Tibetan life. Everything else—the thousands of destroyed monasteries, the deportation of children for indoctrination, the imprisonment, torture and death of thousands of Tibetans, the several hundred thousand Chinese troops and the reckless exploitation of Tibet's natural resources—only serves to benefit the occupying Chinese.