Sister City Stories

Penrith and Fujieda
- 20years -

2004
ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
Click on each to view

Perth and Kagoshima
- 30years -

Oldest NZ - Japan Sister City Link
Looks to the Next Century

The Christchurch - Kurashiki Sister City Relationship was New Zealand's first city to city link with Japan, formalised in 1973. The link was forged by Michael Gorman, a former Christchurch resident, who moved to Kurashiki and has lived there ever since.

A visiting delegation from Kurashiki plants a tree in the Kurashiki section of the Sister Cities Gardens in Christchurch.

This Sister City relationship is one of Christchurch's most active links with many exchanges taking place throughout the year including:

>> Annual student exchanges, both ways, of 2 weeks duration. Students participate in school activities and are home-hosted, so they can experience the real Japanese and New Zealand lifestyles.

>> Every 2nd year Kurashiki recruits people from Christchurch as Assistant English Teachers (AET's) for Kurashiki High Schools. Last year 10 people went to Kurashiki on renewable contracts.

>> Last year Christchurch hosted under 17 representative teams from sister cities Kurashiki, Japan, and Songpa-Gu, Korea for the Christchurch U17 Youth Soccer Tournament, an event that was a huge success, and was awarded the 'Best Youth or Education Project' in the Sister Cities Air New Zealand Awards 2000.

>> Two-Five employees from Kurashiki City Government are sent on a study visit to Christchurch City Council each year.

As part of the 2000 celebrations, one of Christchurch's biggest and most exciting sister city projects this year is the development of the Sister Cities Gardens at Halswell Quarry Park. A 55 hectare site is being developed into a botanical parkland featuring unique gardens landscaped in a style which reflects the six sister cities ? Adelaide (Australia), Christchurch (England), Gansu Province (China), Kurashiki (Japan), Seattle (USA) and Songpa-Gu (Korea) - as well as a New Zealand native area.

Planting started in mid 1999 with the first trees being planted by Mayor Garry Moore and the Chairmen of each of the six sister city committees. Since then, many hundreds of trees have been planted in each of the gardens by a large number of volunteers (including schools, local interest groups and ethnic communities), park staff and visiting delegations including the Mayor of Kurashiki. Visiting delegations from Kurashiki are invited to plant a tree in the Kurashiki Garden and the event is recorded in a Visitors Book.

The entrance to the Kurakshiki garden is to be through a wisteria-covered archway (wisteria is the native emblem of Kurashiki) and a major feature within the garden is to be a shade house. The plans for the shade house have been obtained from Kurashiki and local Japanese builders are to assist with the building to ensure that the construction methods followed are in typical Japanese style. The official opening of the Sister Cities Gardens is to be held in February 2001, which we hope will be attended by delegations from all our sister cities.

FACT FILE Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture Population: 422,836 International Relations Division, Kurashiki City 640 Nishinaka-shinden, Kurashiki-shi, Okayama-ken 710-8565 Tel. (086)-426-3030 Fax. (086)-421-2400 http://www.city.kurashiki.okayama.jp/index_e.html

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