MANSFIELD — Katsuhiko Shiraishi sat in the cafeteria at Kingwood Center Gardens, a slice of pepperoni pizza before him.
It was a far away from home for Shiraishi, who hails from the region of Fukushima, Japan. His hometown, Tamura City, is nestled in the mountains and known for its peaches and cherry trees.
Shiraishi and four other Tamura City residents visited Mansfield last week as part of the Sister City program. Guests included Hioshi Nitta, Masaaki Nagamine, Naoko Miyanohara and Miyuki Ishida and Shiraishi.
All are members of the Tamura International Friendship Association.
Allison Clay, a Mansfield native now based in Tamura City, also accompanied the group. Tamura City is more than 6,000 miles from Mansfield.
The delegation visited sites across the Mansfield area, including Buckeye Imagination Museum, St. Peter’s Parish, the Ohio Bird Sanctuary, Gorman Nature Center, the Ohio State Reformatory and Kingwood Center.
Visitors met with Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry and the staff of the Richland County Chamber of Commerce and toured local schools including Lexington Junior High and High School and Mansfield Christian School.
They also tried a variety of foods, from American classics like hot dogs and s’mores to local eateries like Athena Greek Restaurant and Pancho’s Tacos.
What’s a sister city?
Sister Cities International, formally known as the people-to-people program, got its start in the 1950s under then-President Dwight Eisenhower.
Eisenhower believed the citizen diplomacy initiative would promote friendship and understanding across cultures, thus diffusing international tensions and reducing the desire for war.
Efforts underway to relaunch student exchange program after COVID-19 pandemic
For decades, high school students from Mansfield and Tamura City regularly visited each others’ cities as part of the exchange program.
“There were a lot of students from Japan that would come every October for a few days attend our schools and sample our cultural life,” said Ann Brown, a Mansfield resident and volunteer hostess with the program.
The last exchange took place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Brown said she’s hopeful the program will start up again, possibly as early as next school year.
“After this week, I think everyone’s decided that we definitely want to start it up again,” Brown said. “We went to Lexington, St Peter’s, Mansfield Christian — all the schools are very excited about starting the exchanges again.”
Brown said the widespread use of technology could be a benefit to the program’s relaunch.
“We are looking at ways of students here in the schools communicating with the Japanese students using technology and maybe doing it on a weekly, monthly basis,” she said.
“When they do come and visit with each other, they’re really have a good knowledge of what our culture is like, how we live,” she added. “They’ll come feeling like, ‘Hey, we’re friends. We’ve been talking.'”
Tamura City is a small, rural town. Ishida said she thinks the chance to travel will allow Tamura youth to have wider views and bigger dreams.
That was certainly the case for Jon Vega, who visited Tamura right after graduating high school in 1997. Before that, his only international travel had been to was Canada.
“It started my international travels,” said Vega, who is hosting some of the delegation this week. “I’ve been to five continents now.”
Friendship between Tamura City and Mansfield goes back decades
Mansfield and Tamura City became official sister cities in 2001. But the connection between the two goes all the way back to 1960.
That’s when a Mansfield resident named Ray Nethery visited Tokyo on behalf of Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and Pastor Kosuke Maki served as his translator.
More than twenty years later, Maki founded the Wakakusa English Program in Tamura. He reached out Nethery, who had returned home, and asked him to send an American teacher to his school to teach English. Since then, Grace Fellowship Church has partnered with the Wakakusa English Program to provide several American English teachers.
Clay, an English teacher with the Wakakusa English Program, said exchange programs can help dispel myths and stereotypes about other cultures.
“Oftentimes my students’ only connection to anything outside of Japan is what they see on YouTube or TikTok or whatever they’re playing on the video games,” she said.
“So I think it’s very important for them to have some sort of real, organic communication with actual people from America or other foreign countries too.”
Brown has visited Japan four times. She said she was most impressed by the warmth and friendliness of the culture and cleanliness of the city.
“We were so safe there, because crime is almost non-existent,” Brown said. “And you’re surrounded by old things with reverence to it — temples and things like that.”
Brown said she was also impressed by the respect for elders and intentionality that are a hallmark of Japanese culture.
“Everything has a meaning. The smallest things have a purpose,” she said.
Rebekah Stefaniuk serves as Wakakusa’s program coordinator from her home in Ashland.
She said she’s watched American teachers become more open-minded after moving to Japan.
“One of my favorite things about our exchange is that our cultures are so very different,” Stefaniuk said. “I think (travel) is phenomenal for empathy, for being kind, just being a good human.”
Brown agreed.
“The exchanges make you a better person.”