Kids in the Student Ambassador Exchange program from Toyonaka, Japan visit the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in San Mateo. From left to right Ruri Iketani, Himari Hayashi, Sora Matsuda, and Mizuho Sotobayashi.
To honor 60 years of friendship between the sister cities of San Mateo and Toyonaka, Japan, four Japanese student ambassadors are enjoying the sites of San Mateo and fulfilling a decades-long commitment to cultural exchange and goodwill.
Ruri Iketani, Himari Hayashi, Sora Matsuda, and Mizuho Sotobayashi arrived in San Mateo on Wednesday and have spent the last two days on a tour of the city that includes breakfast with San Mateo Mayor Amourence Lee, a lunch with seniors, a tour of the city’s police department and library, and attending a summer concert series in the park. The four students were chosen based on their success in an English speech contest they entered in 2020, with the pandemic delaying their trip to San Mateo. Highlights so far have included trying pop-tart flavors and buying Ray-Ban sunglasses made famous by Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun.
Carolyn Shavel is one of the chaperones looking after the students and also works with the Sister City Association helping to organize events. She led the students on various visits on Thursday for their first full day in San Mateo. Shavel said learning about the differences between the two cities and bringing people together is important to her. Meeting people from Japan also puts a face to a country. The day before, the group arrived from the airport and drove around town to see city hall and meet staff. The group will be in San Francisco tomorrow, and the students are hoping to visit the Golden Gate Bridge and Pier 39.
“I love the fact that I get to introduce them to San Mateo and show them around and how different life is,” Shavel said.
Shavel said the students have been a wonderful, friendly and fun group who have enjoyed getting away from the hot and humid weather for the relatively cool Bay Area. San Mateo City Clerk Patrice Olds said it was the first time in America for all four students, who were all excited to be there. She noted many were nervous about meeting the mayor. Even though the program has been around for 60 years, Olds feels the program continues to maintain its vibrancy because young students are involved, and it provides a new freshness for all the different people involved in the program. The four student ambassadors attended a firefighter chili contest and served as judges for the food tasting. During the contest, several firefighters approached Shavel and told her they visited Japan decades ago and enjoyed their time and seeing new faces be part of the exchange.
“It’s that continuity that makes the program vibrant,” Olds said.
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The sister-city relationship began in 1963 when a delegation of San Mateo city officials visited Toyonaka and established programs such as library book exchanges and gift exchanges following recommendations from students who visited Toyonaka in 1962. Toyonaka has 393,000 residents and is located in the Osaka area. President Dwight Eisenhower created the Sister City Program to promote peace between different cultures and break down barriers. The program has led to hundreds of sister city connections across the world.
San Mateo will also be sending a 32-member contingent in late September to Toyonaka as part of a youth baseball exchange that has occurred for 44 years, where all-star teams from both cities play each other over five exhibition games. The San Mateo group last made the trip across the Pacific in 2019, with the 2021 event canceled due to the pandemic. Students will stay with host families and visit Osaka, travel on the famed Bullet Train and be ambassadors for the city of San Mateo.
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