Kent, Auburn embark on international relations

Local teens plan for trip to Japan

South King County might not seem like a major crossroads for international relations.

But for a local group of students and their families, 2008 will go down as the year their world became just a little smaller.

Fresh from hosting a group of four students from Tamba, Japan, nine teens from the cities of Kent, Auburn and Renton will be returning the gesture starting next Thursday, with a two-week stay in Tamba itself.

For both sets of students, this is more than just a footnote for an exotic summer: it’s a first step for each into a new culture.

And, ultimately, it’s the chance to realize just how similar the other is, in spite of different languages, clothing and landscapes.

“The fundamental part of this whole program is that by the time the kids are done, they realize they have so much more in common than the differences,” said Dave Mortenson, chair of the Kent Sister Cities program, whose organization is operating in tandem with the City of Auburn’s sister-cities group to make this summer’s two-way exchange a reality.

“The whole purpose of the program is to bridge the differences,” Mortenson noted, adding that in his experience, it takes very little time for the teens from two cultures to start finding common ground.

That’s exactly what was unfolding last week in Auburn and Kent, as the four exchange students from Tamba, along with their two adult chaperones, stayed with local families and had a chance to sample life in the Pacific Northwest. There were shopping trips, a visit to Auburn’s Japanese Bon Odori festival last Saturday, visits to the mayors of Kent and Auburn, stopovers at Pike Place Market – and a major highlight – a Mariner’s game on Friday night, before the group boarded its plane Saturday for home.

Waka Ikeda, 14, was one of those students, and was staying with the family of Amy Chung, 15, a student at Kentridge High School.

Ikeda, speaking with help from her new friend at the Bon Odori festival, acknowledged she was really enjoying the shopping, in spite of some advanced jet lag.

Chung added they were getting on very well, and working successfully around the language barrier.

“We have really, really cute gestures,” she said, with a smile, as Ikeda smiled back.

She also noted her guest was excited about the M’s game.

“She really wants to see Ichiro,” Chung said.

For her part, Chung said she was excited, but nervous, about going to Tamba.

“I’m just scared I might disrespect their culture,” she said.

But she was looking forward to seeing the city for herself – and to maybe get a glimpse of Tamba’s prehistoric celebrity: a fossilized dinosaur skeleton that was discovered in the region, and which is now housed at a museum in the region.

Excited but nervous also described the parents of Heather Ryan, who in an interview at the Bon Odori festival sounded like most parents would about sending their 15-year-old on an international trip.

“I’m a little nervous,” dad Bill Ryan said of Heather, who attends Riverside High School. “I’m a little reluctant to send her halfway around the world.”

But the Auburn resident acknowledged the Pacific Northwest is becoming ever more connected to Asia, and understanding that culture has become increasingly important.

“The Asian influence is becoming more prevalent,” Bill Ryan said. “And our society is changing – it’s becoming more and more international.”

It’s that connectedness between two cultures that has driven the sister-cities relationship between the cities of Kent, Auburn and Tamba.

In fact, it’s a relationship that has spanned decades.

Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke explained her city has had a sister-city relationship of more than 40 years with the Japanese city of Kaibara.

And in Auburn, a similar relationship has been in place since 1964 with another Japanese city, Kasuga, which is close to Kaibara.

In 2008, Kaibara and Kasuga merged with another four neighboring towns to create the “super city” of Tamba.

And that’s when it made sense, Cooke said, to have Kent and Auburn combine resources to have a sister-city relationship with Tamba.

“It was serendipity, in a sense,” she noted.

Cooke, who has visited Tamba as part of a sister-cities delegation, spoke highly of having citizens experiencing the cultures of the other.

“I am a strong believer that we need the exposure from different cultures to explore our world,” she said. “And they are here in Kent – Kent is the home of so many cultures now.”

And to truly understand the good things about the United States – its history and freedoms, she noted – sometimes you need to go somewhere else.

“You can’t get an appreciation for what we have than to go to another country and experience how things can be,” Cooke said.

Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis noted that bridging cultures – especially for local teens – is becoming critical.

“Our youth in the U.S. and the Northwest are really isolated from the world,” Lewis said, in an e-mail response to the Reporter. “The possibility of seeing the U.S., Asia and the world from another’s perspective does change their lives.”

And the relationships go beyond teens as well.

“For decades, children and adults from each community crisscrossed the Pacific for educational, cultural and business exchanges,” Lewis wrote. “With the consolidation of cities in Japan, the new Auburn/Kent/Tamba relationship has invigorated all our communities.”

Local students visiting Tamba

• Amy Chung, Renton, Kentridge High School

• Heather Ryan, Auburn, Auburn Riverside High School

• Joshua Bennett, Auburn, Auburn High School

• Kyle Cheney, Auburn, Auburn High School

• Trinity Smith, Kent, Kentlake High School

• Josh Howard, Auburn, Auburn Mountainview High School

• Christina Jones, Auburn, Auburn High School

• Dexter Lesaca III, Kent, Kent Meridian High School

• Alex Hwang, Kent, Kentridge High School

Background

• Tamba is an agricultural community located in the Khogo Prefecture, Hansai region north of Kobe on the island of Honshu. The Kent-Tamba relationship spans a period of 40 years. Kaibara joined with five adjacent cities in consolidation to form the new city of Tamba.

•The five adjacent cities include Kasuga, the community which has maintained a sister-city relationship with Auburn since 1964. Given their mutual interests, the cities of Kent and Auburn have joined together in sister-city activities with Tamba.

• To learn more about Kent’s Sister Cities program, go to www.ci.kent.wa.us/SisterCities/index.aspx.

• To learn more about Auburn’s Sister Cities program, contact Duana Richards, Auburn’s sister-city liaison, at 253-931-3099, or drichards@auburnwa.gov.