Yonezawa, Moses Lake mark 40 years of sister city ties

MOSES LAKE — Residents of both Moses Lake and its Japanese sister city Yonezawa were finally able to formally commemorate the 40th anniversary of the sister-city relationship during a short ceremony held on Tuesday and live streamed to and from both cities.

Current and former elected officials gathered in the Moses Lake Civic Center auditorium Tuesday afternoon to mark the 40-year relationship — officially established in May 1981 — a year late after delays imposed by COVID-19 restrictions forced a halt to person-to-person exchanges between Japan and the United States and the cancelation of a long-planned joint celebration.

Yonezawa officials, including Mayor Masaru Nakagawa and City Council Chairperson Aita Katsuhira, gathered in a city park at the same time to celebrate the event.

As part of the relationship, small groups of high school students from each city visit the other for a couple of weeks in late summer to experience life in the other city, though the exchanges have not happened since 2017, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic and in part because of a difficulty in finding volunteers.

“Even today, I vividly remember the vast land and beautiful lake, waterskiing and barbecuing, the magnificence of Grand Coulee Dam, the excitement I felt at the county fair,” said Katsuhira through a translator of his time as an exchange student. “I will never forget that excellent summer as long as I live. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your hospitality.”

Katsuhira said Yonezawa has eight sister city relationships, but none are as important to Yonezawa residents as the one with Moses Lake.

“No other city we have considered as family like Moses Lake,” he said.

“We’ve had some challenges with COVID and other things,” said Dustin Swartz, a current member of the Moses Lake City Council and former exchange student who visited Yonezawa in 1999, after the celebration. “I’m glad to see that there’s a good contingency that was present from Yonezawa and Moses Lake. That gives me a lot of hope for the future of the program.”

Swartz said his exchange visit taught him a lot about Japanese culture and was a big influence in some of the decisions he made after high school.

“It was very inspirational,” he said. “During my formative years, it guided my decisions, in college and otherwise, as far as understanding the way the world works.”

To mark the occasion, Moses Lake officials planted a cherry blossom tree in the city’s Japanese Garden, and Yonezawa officials planted a rhododendron in one of the city’s gardens, according to City Manager Allison Williams.

Williams said volunteers are needed to help as the city gets ready to revive the program.

“Host families. Chaperones. Pretty much anything involving the sister city program. Finding volunteers has been very difficult, but we’re looking to have exchanges back again as soon as Japan allows them,” she said.

For more information on the Moses Lake-Yonezawa sister city program, visit the city’s webpage and follow the links https://cityofml.com/522/Sister-City-Student-Exchange.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.