I don't know if everyone knows how we came up with our five color areas, but this happened in the planning stages of the Orient. They were originally planned to be the top level of the neighborhood lists, so that instead of 17 nations on the worldpage, you would see five regions. After some input from Jot, we agreed that the 17 Nations would be better (since no one would have a clue what was in those regions). But we retained our color breakdown because we liked the feng shui of it and because it actually does make dividing up the work of the scribes easier. That and it's pretty cool.... but really that's their only true significance.

The complaints we had last year stemmed from the fact that the only country we had in the Yellow Lion Region at the time was China and some people felt this was "China taking over Tibet again". Let me say now, we have NO political agenda in the way we've divided up these regions! We're moving Tibet into the Yellow Lion Region, NOT into China. In fact...I'm thinking we may need to swipe Nepal, too.....

And in case you are very interested in Tibet and think that my interest lies so much in China that I might let Tibet "slide"...please let me set those worries to rest. I had only begun to be interested in the Orient when the possibility of this world's creation was announced — that was the main reason I pushed so hard for it. China and Japan were initial interests, but I've begun to find myself attracted to Tibet and Nepal a lot. In fact, I think I'll go join The Roof of the World now....