Newport Beach delegation visits Okazaki to celebrate 40 years of friendship
A cross-cultural exchange across the Pacific Ocean marks a significant milestone this year as the Newport Beach Sister City Assn. celebrates its 40th anniversary of affiliation with Okazaki, Japan.
The occasion was marked this week by a four-day visit of a 15-member delegation that included Newport Beach City Council members Robyn Grant and Erik Weigand.
The visit included the presentation of an original artwork by Pierce Mehan the nonprofit organization commissioned for both cities. The companion Newport Beach piece is expected to be presented at a public ceremony with the City Council in July.
Along with Antibes, France, and Ensenada, Mexico, Okazaki is one of three sister cities affiliated with Newport Beach.
Grant and Weigand said the Newport Beach delegation met with Mayor Yasuhiro Nakane and a number of other Okazaki elected officials in ceremonial events around the city. Both described Okazaki as being very similar to Newport Beach — especially when comparing its public library to Newport’s.
“Their central library ... was almost a mirror image of our central library architecturally, and they had a music room,” said Grant, adding that she and Newport Beach Sister City Assn. President Truly Gold Boring were discussing adding the local library as a stop when the Okazaki delegation visits later this summer.
Grant said the relationship between the two cities and the relevance of the Sister Cities program transcends more than just a visit.
“It is about an exchange of ideas and friendship, but there’s a bigger picture. This Sister Cities organization is part of a worldwide network of Sister City organizations. This was a program that was started under Dwight Eisenhower and it was to promote international understanding and friendship and extend alliances around the world by one of our presidents. What we’re doing today, and what Truly’s leading today, is something that has deep roots in our country’s history and deep roots in our city’s history,” Grant said.
Gold Boring said her family has been involved with the organization for a number of years. Her grandfather, in fact, was one of its founders. Her mother was also a part of the organization. Gold Boring runs the organization now, and her daughter is also involved.
“At the [start], it was a delegation of adults that went back and forth. Then, eventually, we started sending students,” said Gold Boring. “We really wanted a cultural as well as a friendship exchange with both adults and kids. The adults would go maybe every five years for these special occasions and the kids would go every year. We send a delegation of eight kids there and sometimes eight kids come here. We’ve had up to 10 before ... a lot of these people who went with us have been there before, but COVID-19 kind of killed the whole exchange program.
“So now, as offices do, a lot of people have turned around in their positions. We lost a lot of people who recognized us as an organization, so in Okazaki we’re trying to rebuild all the communication again with the people there so we can continue the exchanges for the kids, especially.”
Gold Boring said her grandmother hosted a student years ago with whom their family has remained in touch. She said she still is a friend of a student who stayed with her family when she was 16.
Noting that relationships established by the association span generations, she reported meeting a man during her recent visit to Okazaki who had known her grandfather.
Weigand said one of this week’s delegation members was a student who went to Japan as part of one of the exchanges, learned Japanese while there and was able to help direct the English-speaking members around the city.
“It’s almost full circle. You’ve got somebody who was a student, who’s now part of the group and is now taking a group of kids there too. His kids might do it, too, because he knows the language and worked there,” Weigand said. “All these things intertwine and that’s what it really comes down to — little Newport Beach gets to show their young ... another culture and how it might be different than theirs and makes it so we’re not so insular here in Newport Beach and get to see a worldwide perspective.”
Grant added that maintaining the relationship is a way to teach people to be respectful of other cultures, which she felt was important messaging to hear and know in today’s world. Gold Boring agreed.
“The reason we have our nonprofit is to get our kids there and to create a relationship early on. Now with technology — emails, phones, texting — a lot of the times we’ll get the numbers of the kids, and the kids can talk to each other before they go and after they go; they stay in relationships their whole life,” Gold Boring said. “The purpose is so that at a young age you’re introduced to a whole new culture and have this camaraderie and openness to people’s different lifestyles and backgrounds and monetarily different lives and learn from them.
“The whole point is to learn from each other.”
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