Sister City program turns 30 Sister City program turns 30 (March 12, 2004)

Students go on exchange visits to Japan, Belgium

By Dan Stapleton

Thirty years ago Mountain View adopted her first sister. Sixteen years later the family got another member. And this July, The Mountain View Sister City Affiliation Organization will send its 15th group of exchange students to the cities of Iwata, Japan and Hasselt, Belgium.

In 1967, Sister Cities International was spun off from President Dwight Eisenhower's post-World War II People To People program, designed to create personal relationships between Americans and people in foreign countries to lessen the chance of future conflicts.

Mountain View's Sister Cities program got its start in 1974 when officials from Iwata contacted Mountain View mayor Carl "Andy" Anderson about the possibility of starting a Sister City relationship. Mountain View received a delegation from Iwata and then Anderson visited the city himself to determine if the cities were compatible.

"Usually what you're looking for is you're trying to find a city that has some things that are in common with your community and is similar in size to your community," said Sister Cities board president Pat Figueroa.

Mountain View and Iwata turned out to be an ideal match. "We've always thought it was kind of interesting that even the downtown is set up the same way, with the train station at the end of main street," she said.

The focus of the nonprofit organization became student exchange. Every other year, the program sends students from the Mountain View and Los Altos High Schools to spend two weeks immersed in another culture. The students raise the $1,000 airfare by washing cars and babysitting, and through sponsorships from Armadillo Willy's, Cold Stone Creamery and Fresh Choice. While in a Sister City, students stay with host families. In exchange, Mountain View families host foreign students when they come to visit here, most recently in August 2003.

Iwata is a town of 87,000 people in the southeastern prefecture of Shizuoka, Japan. In 1974, both Iwata and Mountain View had thriving agricultural industries. Mountain View was known for its apricots and prunes and Iwata for its cantaloupes. Since then, Mountain View has become less of a fruit producer and more of a hotbed of technological development, but Iwata has remained largely agricultural.

"It is starting to modernize, but it is more of a country city. They are supposed to be doing well compared to the rest of Japan," said Sister Cities board vice president Amy Imai. "They have a Yamaha motorcycle factory there and there are textiles, and they are known for their green tea. They still have their fields and their agriculture there."

Students visiting Iwata spend a lot of time with their host families. They are shown around by their Japanese counterparts and visit the different types of high schools, which focus on either college prep or business training. And they attend martial arts clubs in karate, kendo and judo.

In 1988 Mountain View formed a second Sister City relationship with Hasselt, Belgium. A modern city with a busy commercial center, Hasselt is a city of 68,000 people located about 45 miles east of Brussels. The capital of the Belgian province of Limburg, Hasselt is known for producing a traditional Dutch beverage known as jenever, a grain alcohol drink flavored with juniper berries, and has several factories and a museum dedicated to it. Technologically, Hasselt boasts one of the largest publicly accessible wireless computer networks in Europe.

"The city is more like Mountain View. The teens do pretty much the same thing as the teens here. They like going to swimming pools, going to clubs and dancing. And you have easier access to different cities," said Amy Imai's daughter Susan who visited Hasselt as an exchange student. Because of Hasselt's location in central Europe, many of the exchange groups have taken the opportunity for a weekend side trip to Paris.

Mountain View also shows the exchange students that visit a good time. "They enjoy the activities. We take them to Monterey and San Francisco. Some have gone to Yosemite, but not all have had the chance to do that," said Susan Imai.

If you are interested in participating in the exchange program, contact Susan Imai at 968-4481.

Email Dan Stapleton at dstapleton@mv-voice.com

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