Sister Cities

For the most eventful part of that weekend for me, see previous post.

June 5 — After the re-signing ceremony and reception, I was finally off the hook. I wandered over to Pioneer Place mall with some of the Sapporo delegation. (I think we did lose some people, but I don’t blame them; they’d just gotten off the plane from Japan that morning, and this was the longest flight some of them had ever taken.)

Now it was time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the children’s art exhibit that was in place in the mall atrium. There were more speeches — Mayor Fumio Ueda and former Portland Mayor Tom Potter. The English to Japanese translator for this event seemed much more at ease in her formal Japanese than I was — I’m guessing she’d spent much longer than my own 4 years in Japan — though at one point, she did get carried away and read her translation ahead of what Tom Potter was saying…again, translating is hard.

The children’s art from Sapporo was actually fairly intriguing. They seemed to be in two categories: features of Sapporo (snow, landmarks such as the government building and the clock tower, etc.), and — strangely enough for June — explanations of New Year’s in Japan. Mostly by fourth and fifth graders, they were a hell of a lot better than anything I could draw at that age, or even now, for that matter.

June 6 — I participated in the Grand Floral Walk, which kicks off the Grand Floral Parade, the main event of the Portland Rose Festival. I’d volunteered to help carry the banner for a Sapporo-related youth group, which I didn’t know anything about until I talked to some people that day. Apparently there’s an international youth summit that takes place in Sapporo, and this was a reunion of sorts for former participants.
Afterward, they kindly treated us to lunch at Todai, where I stuffed myself with sushi and those cute little cakes I love so much there.

June 7 — A light day for me in terms of Sister City involvement. I sat at the hospitality desk at the Benson Hotel for just a couple hours. There wasn’t a lot for me to do, since people were mostly getting ready to go to the “Sayonara Party” at the Japanese Garden that evening. I think the most significant thing I did was direct a woman to the Bath & Body Works for nice-smelling bathroom stuff. I mostly chatted up the other volunteer working the desk with me, a white American who’d lived in Japan for several years and spoke pretty good Japanese.
I didn’t attend the Sayonara Party because, well, the weather wasn’t looking so great and I was feeling pretty exhausted after a busy weekend.

I wish I could have done some of the tour group outings, or the dinners that people in the area were hosting in their homes. But I guess I can’t do everything.

Here’s what I took away from the weekend of sister city activity:
- Portland and Sapporo have an active, committed sister city relationship unlike — from the impression I get — many other sister cities.
- Both cities like to emphasize their shared love of: nature, environmentalism, and of course, beer.
- Best moment with the two mayors: During the signing, Fumio Ueda went straight to signing the document. Sam Adams looked up and held his pen up with a cheesy smile at the flashing cameras. Mayor Ueda figured out what was going on and did the same.
- It’s great that I got to do it, but I don’t think I want to do formal interpretation again.
- …but I would love to work with Japanese visitors more.