nwasianweekly.com
August 11, 2007

Photo by George Liu

Citizens from Kobe, Japan, marched in the Torchlight Parade in downtown Seattle on July 28

Seattle, Kobe mark major milestone

By Irfan Shariff
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

A delegation of more than 40 people from Kobe, Japan, enjoyed the sights and sounds of Seattle late last month as they commemorated an important milestone in the relationship between the two Pacific Rim cities.

This October marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Agreement, the first of its kind for either city.

Led by Kobe Vice Mayor Isao Uzaki, the delegation included seniors from the YMCA, city officials and high school students. They took part in the Seafair Torchlight Parade and sat alongside first base at the July 30 Mariners game to cheer on their Japanese compatriots, Kenji Johjima and Ichiro Suzuki, who used to play for the Kobe Orix BlueWave. The Kobe vice mayor threw out the first pitch that night.

Several events were also held in their honor, including a reception at the new Olympic Sculpture Park, a gift presentation at the Seattle Children’s Museum and a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a photo exhibit at City Hall.

At a brief speech at City Hall on July 30, Mayor Greg Nickels noted that the people of Kobe and Seattle have enjoyed their sister-city status for three generations.

The agreement was signed under Mayor Gordon Clinton in 1957. Seattle has since entered into 20 more sister-city relationships, but remains true to Kobe, with which it maintains some of the strongest cultural and business similarities.

Seattle and Kobe are both major ports and centers of international trade, said Karin Zaugg Black, president of the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association.

“They are fun places to visit, (but) they are also cities of innovation,” she said. Kobe also has a growing life sciences and biotechnology industry.

The coastal city of Kobe, located in Hyogo Prefecture, is an important Japanese and Pacific port. Geographically, like Seattle, it is wedged between mountains and the sea.

Kenji Uematsu, director of the Kobe International Trade Office, the City of Kobe’s bureau in Seattle, noted that people in both cities are “friendly and open-hearted.”

“Our port was opened 140 years ago from a national isolation policy (during the) Edo period,” he said. Kobe was one of the first Japanese cities to open to foreigners. Today it still retains many international ties.

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of a sister-port agreement initiated by Kobe between itself, Seattle and Rotterdam, Netherlands. The tri-port relationship offers the cities a chance to share information, best practices and improve business models, said Zaugg Black.

To many Americans, Kobe is known for a particular style of expensive but delicious beef. However, most Japanese associate it with the 7.3-magnitude earthquake in 1995, known as the “Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake,” which claimed more than 4,500 lives and devastated the city’s infrastructure and commerce.

Under Mayor Norm Rice, Seattle organized a relief effort consisting of immediate and long-term assistance. Seattle engineers visiting Kobe brought the lessons they learned from this disaster back home, noted Zaugg Black.

Zaugg Black was working for the mayor of Kobe at the time of the quake. Remembering the efforts of the citizens of Seattle, she calls them a “solid sign of the strength of the (sister-city) relationship.”

To strengthen those ties, the cities trade gifts on major anniversaries. This May, Seattle presented a sculpture by Northwest artist Koryn Rolstad to be placed in the Kobe airport. Zaugg Black described the work as fitting for the Japanese people. “It is a lovely piece that mimics waves and sunrays,” she said.

This fall, Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada will deliver 50 cherry blossom trees to be planted around the city. Seattle will also be loaned an exhibit from the Kobe Art Museum entitled “Japan Envisions the West,” which will run October through January at the Seattle Art Museum.

The Kobe Bell at Seattle Center, presented in honor of the 1962 World’s Fair, was also a gift from the citizens of Kobe.

The sister-cities programs were started by President Eisenhower in 1956 as part of a citizen-diplomacy agenda that called for common people to interact with public policy domestically and internationally.

Zaugg Black noted that Seattle was one of the first cities to practice this “people-to-people initiative.”

“If (Seattle) wants to be an international city, it needs exposure to the world,” she said, regarding the benefits gained from the Seattle-Kobe association.

A teacher exchange, which was cut at the time of the earthquake, had the “long-lasting benefit of opening young people’s minds to international and cultural exchange,” she added.

Zaugg Black believes it is essential to keep the Seattle-Kobe relationship strong. Many local organizations, including the Mariners, Seafair and the Seattle Yacht Club, have developed their own ties to groups in Kobe that an overarching relationship only makes sense, she said.

For more information about the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association, www.seattlekobe.org.

Irfan Shariff can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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