I'm not really sure how to answer this question exactly. I mean, the nature of the question is kind of ambiguous to start with. What were you like in your youth?
That said, I can point you to some primary sources and you can decide for yourself:
Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, was born Dhondup in 1935. His family is from Amdo (north-eastern Tibet) and according to The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama by Thomas Laird, he claims to have been born into a family that spoke not Tibetan, but a dialect of Chinese infused with Tibetan words. (I once mentioned this to someone and they took intense offense, telling me to never say such a thing to Tibetans because that would be unthinkable: the Dalai Lama's family is from Amdo, so they logically spoke the Tibetan dialect native to Amdo, Amdowa. I don't have another source to corroborate these linguistic details. Obviously, the Dalai Lama spends the majority of his time speaking Tibetan now. And since his family was transplanted to Lhasa and became celebrated and powerful members of the Lhasap aristocracy shortly after his recognition, the theory of them speaking Chinese seems... weird to me, to say the least. I haven't read it, but I anticipate there might be more information about this in Kundun: A Biography of the Family of the Dalai Lama by Mary Craig).
His predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, had died in 1933, and shortly before his death, turned towards the north-east. So most search efforts for his reincarnation were directed in that area (i.e. Amdo). Amdo, plus what is today Gansu province, however, were under the control of the Ma Clique, a group of Warlords of the Hui (Muslim) extraction. Their leader, Ma Pufang (who would later be the Republic of China's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia after the loss of all Mainland China) wouldn't allow the Tibetans to leave with Dhondup, who was first identified as a possible reincarnation at 2 and recognized at 4. The Tibetans bribed Ma Pufang to let them leave his territory (it wasn't a "border" so much as a "border-zone." To put it very simply, the regions' borders were ill-defined at best, and non-existent at worst.^1 It's generally become tradition to not make it known that they were looking for the Dalai Lama (mostly out of fear of false-positives), but in this instance, it was now dangerous. Fearing that Ma Pufang would never let them leave if he knew who the boy was, the Tibetans convinced him it was some low-level reincarnate, and he took the bribe. On 8 October 1939, he was formally recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and given his new name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. Usually just the last two.
The Dalai Lama was taken to Lhasa, his family showered with wealth and titles, and immediately began his education as a Buddhist monk. In Laird, he talks quite a bit about his informal education in the Potala Palace from "the Sweepers," who were apparently older monks dedicated to simple tasks (if my memory serves correct, they were typically not monks who spent their whole lives in the Sangha, but came to it later, hence did not have the formal education that Tenzin Gyatso and his peers received). The Dalai Lama's expansive bibliography includes lots of details about his early life, but probably best summarized in his autobiography/memoir Freedom in Exile.
His early life was really moved by two movements of outsiders in ways that previous Dalai Lamas were not affected. The first was the arrivals of Westerners in Lhasa during the Second World War. Heinrich Harrer (of Seven Years in Tibet) is probably the most famous, though he arrived there with Peter Aufschnaiter, and there were reportedly two or more Westerners in the area.^2 The Westerners introduced the young Dalai Lama to ideas that were if not entirely foreign, were only partially understood. One of Harrer's most famous exploits was building a theatre to show films the Tibetans had collected (but didn't have the capacity to watch, a Tibetan tradition of Western object collecting that goes back to the 1700s) and to help repair the motor vehicles that the Tibetans had acquired, but let go into disrepair.^3 Harrer - an Austrian - was also tasked with introducing the Latin alphabet to the Dalai Lama and giving him some geographical education. The Dalai Lama recalls his lessons with Harrer fondly, and remembers being engrossed in this unique education.
The other major - and rather disruptive - influence in the Dalai Lama's youth was the arrival of the Communist People's Liberation Army. To put things very simply (I encourage you to read the books mentioned in this post for far more detail than I can ever fit here): the PLA invaded Tibet in late 1950, when the Tibetan Army completely routed at Chamdo in October, the Dalai Lama and a close retinue fled Lhasa and stayed at Gyantse Dzong by the Indian border. On 23 May 1951, the Tibetan authorities in Lhasa signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which effectively ended any Tibetan conception of independence, and served as a formal surrender. The Dalai Lama, theoretically the head of the Tibetan State, was not consulted and was reportedly distraught at hearing this news (reminder: he was only fourteen years old).
He received two sets of advice: go to India and maintain the concept of Tibetan independence (hopefully finding a receptive audience among Britain, India, and the United States) or return to Tibet and try to work with the Chinese. Not wanting to escalate the violence, the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa to try and work with them. The Tibetans were continuously divided among themselves and found themselves unable to work with the Chinese without a central guiding hand. It was decided, amongst much debate, that Tenzin Gyatso would end his regency and ascend to full political and spiritual control of Tibet at age 16 (1953). Things continued to get worse in Tibet as the Chinese Army showed themselves unwilling to grant the smallest of concessions towards the Tibetan government and society which they regarded as backwards, feudal, and reactionary. At the same time, they continually told the Tibetans they were there to help, and were dedicated to respecting their traditions while achieving socialist revolution.
They would do things like create sudden committees out of virtually nothing to give the vague sense of consensus among locals, but then make sure the committee was staffed 60% or more by Chinese Communists. In Freedom in Exile the Dalai Lama recalls being at the head of one of these Committees where he was the only Tibetan.
They also drew borders that were intended to limit the Dalai Lama's influence (i.e. cutting off Kham and Amdo from Lhasap control) and then proceeding with a "two speed revolution," promising the Dalai Lama to allow Tibet (as defined by China) to proceed slowly into a socialist paradise, while completely dismantling Tibetan societies in Kham and Amdo. We'll come back to that in a minute.
In 1955, the Dalai Lama^4 went to Beijing and met with Mao Zedong. Here he was shown the material bounty of modernity, and was given his first real lesson in the potential for Communism. The Dalai Lama, somewhat ironically, recounts his meetings with Mao fondly, saying several times that he acknowledged Mao as a kind of "father figure." Even now, the Dalai Lama promotes socialism as possibly answering mankind's material needs, just as Buddhism can answer mankind's spiritual needs. When he returned to Lhasa, he was excited and went to work with renewed energy, with the knowledge that Mao wanted to work with him and the Tibetans.
It didn't end happily. While the Dalai Lama was hoping to get new assurances from Mao, Mao seemed to be trying to convert the Dalai Lama whole-heartedly to socialism, including atheism. The one quote that gets repeated, reportedly from Mao's own mouth is, "Religion is poison." It was clearly disturbing to the Chinese that the Dalai Lama, after returning to Lhasa, was invited to India for the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha's birth. The fear seemed to be that the Dalai Lama did not take to his Beijing lessons very well and was going to defect, taking Chinese legitimacy to Tibet with him.
Their fear seems to be unfounded. The Dalai Lama seemed to have every intention of returning from the beginning, and from what I read, seemed rather confused by this idea of not returning to Tibet. All that was about to change. While the Dalai Lama and his government struggled to find common ground with the PLA in Lhasa, in Kham the PLA and Communist administration didn't even try, and were simply seizing and redistributing Khampa farms and homesteads at will.^5 Foreseeing how this would end, the Khampas - who are well known among Tibetans for their warrior culture - took their weapons to the hills and began a general uprising. Not traditionally beholden to the Dalai Lama or his particular school (the Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelukpa Sect, Kham is a traditional Nyingma stronghold) most other traditional authority had vanished or been imprisoned by 1957, so they petitioned the Dalai Lama for help.
con't.