Wine Brings Two Cities Together from Across an Ocean

SHANTEL DICKERSON (Oita, 2016-2018)

Sister city relationships between Japan and the United States started in 1955 on the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Then President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded the sister city program with the belief that citizen diplomacy and people-to-people exchange are fundamental in creating understandings and building lasting friendships between nations. Over the last 64 years, 426 sister city relationships have been established between the United States and Japan as an attempt to promote peace through grassroots initiatives — far more than between any two other countries.

In many ways, my interest in sister city relationships began when I grew curious about the 58-year connection between my hometown of Lodi, California, and Kofu, Japan. I had been living abroad in Oita Prefecture for two years, and my contract as an Assistant Language Teacher in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program was ending. I was searching for ways to stay connected with Japan after my inevitable departure, which is what lead me to contact Bill Hinkle, President of the Lodi Sister City Committee.

Mr. Hinkle, who has been involved with the Lodi-Kofu relationship since 1980, helped me coordinate a visit to the small farming town, where I met with Kofu City Hall Officials. They arranged a tour of the Sadoya Winery and presented me with a bottle of wine, a hallmark of the agricultural connection between Lodi and Kofu.

“Grapes,” Mr. Hinkle professed, are what characterize the relationship between Lodi and Kofu. . . .

Shantel Dickerson is a freelance writer and photographer from Lockeford, California, who served as a JET Program Assistant Language Teacher in Beppu, Oita, Japan, from 2016-2018.

This article is part of a guest-contributor partnership between the East-West Center in Washington and USJETAA in which former JET participants contribute articles relating to their experiences in Japan.