As of December 2015, there are 108 sister city relationships between Japan and Australia (made up of 102 municipalities and 6 states). Also, there are 41 sister city relationships between Japan and New Zealand.
We provide assistance to sister cities (including sister states) regarding cultural differences, research and information requests. We also promote and help form new sister city relationships by introducing municipalities in Australia/New Zealand to those in Japan. In this newsletter we would like to introduce some recent and upcoming sister city activities to you.
Victoria State – Aichi Prefecture
Victoria and Aichi Prefecture marked their 35th anniversary last August. They jointly held a business forum to promote bilateral investments at the anniversary event.
This may be a larger scale event compared to events held by sister cities but this idea of collaboration, more specifically economic collaboration, will only be rising in importance as businesses will likely be eager to pursue economic growth through existing city ties.
Penrith – Fujieda
One of th
e most beneficial aspects of having a sister city relationship is the ability to foster children to think internationally.
Penrith and Fujieda started their youth exchange program about 30 years ago.
From this photograph (making sushi-rolls) you can see how children can be engaged in activities that deepen their understanding of other cultures.
We assure you participants in such exchanges have high potential in becoming bridges between countries.
Whitehorse – Matsudo
The City of Whitehorse, Victoria and Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture will mark their 45th anniversary this year. They are now planning some wonderful anniversary events for this coming May.
Matsudo city will hold a photo exhibition and samurai performance at the Japan Festival in Boxhill (held annually by Japan Club of Victoria). The samurai performers will be sporting a special kind of Kacchu (Japanese samurai armor) made out of cardboard by a group of Kacchu lovers from Matsudo City.
Furthermore the city also plans to hold an event at Prahran Market to promote their special local produce such as Shiratama-Ko (glutinous rice flour used to make Shiratama, which is a delicious, chewy Japanese delicacy) and Ajisai-Negi (spring onion). At the event, the mayor of Matsudo City will personally be promoting Matsudo local produce and visitors will be able to enjoy Shiratama-Zenzai (Japanese traditional sweets) and processed food using Ajisai-Negi. We believe this kind of event can become a trigger to stimulate Matsudo City’s local economy.
Here we have introduced a few good examples but there are definitely many more.
We look forward to contributing to forging and promoting many more sister city relationships in the future.