Building a Family of Sister Cities with Idaho Falls
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I always thought it was cool that Idaho Falls has a Japanese sister city, Tokai-Mura. I never really understood what it did for either of us beyond the annual official visits. It is really nice that they gave us those sculptures on the greenbelt, and the samurai suit in the Mayor’s office is an amazing piece.
I looked into what made Tokai-Mura an ideal sister city for Idaho Falls, and it turns out they also have an agricultural background and are near a nuclear plant. That would seem to be a common enough background with us.
I then wondered if Idaho Falls might find ideal sister cities in other nuclear nations. Just imagine if we partnered up the same way with cities in the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran? Is there any rule that we have to limit ourselves to just one sister city?
What would it really mean for Idaho Falls? It would be interesting to host city festivals honoring our sister cities. The festivals could include music, art, and food activities from the respective nation. We could have “UK Week”, “Russia Week”, etc. with multicultural weeks spread across spring and summer. We could have interesting cultural festivities, and the ties could lead to increased commerce.
Here is a map of communities seeking sister city relationships (click a continent to get a list of cities).
What do you think?
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Comments
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0 I think that before we work on increasing the amount of sister cities that we have, we should work on increasing our knowledge about our current sister city Tokai-Mura.
I have a friend who vacationed in Japan recently and went to Tokai-Mura. He was stunned at how much the local residents knew about Idaho Falls. They could tell him things about I.F. that he was sure even some of our local children couldn’t tell him. Personally, I couldn’t even tell you where in Japan Tokai-Mura is…
Is there some kind of program in place to educate our kids about our sister city, or is it something we should take personal responsibility for?
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0 0 I agree we should increase our knowledge of Tokai-Mura. I never learned much about them, and I’ve lived in Idaho Falls for 20+ years.
Is that an individual responsibility, or a city responsibility? I don’t mean the city is responsible for ensuring all citizens can pass a knowledge test on our sister city, but what kind of education or exposure have they provided for us? The downtown sculptures do not even have explanatory plaques near them.
Last year representatives from that city visited Idaho Falls, and I only heard about it after they left.
Maybe by having an annual festival dedicated to them, we would learn more about them. Can you see “Japan Week in Idaho Falls”?
Maybe we could exchange artists for a month, like those ‘artist-in-residence’ programs?
I realize that developing relationships with Pakistani, Iranian, and North Korean cities would be difficult in the current hostile international climate. If a conservative Idaho city could lead the way, it could be seen as our own little “Nixon goes to China” maneuver.
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0 0 Tokai-Mura takes the sister city program much more serious that Idaho Falls. They have what seems like unlimited help from their citizens and local business leaders. It seems like Idaho Falls has to kick and scratch to keep the program going. I’d be interested in programs with other cities from around the world but I belive we first need to make the one we have more sucessful.
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0 0 Maybe more people in Idaho Falls would like to get more serious about it, but they don’t know how, especially with the language barrier.
I’ve gone to their city website, and did not see any English translations. I had no idea of any way to interact with their site or their city.
What could ordinary people do?
I thought maybe blogs like this could be a way to forge bonds, but again there is the language barrier.
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0 0 I was involved with sister cities when I was 15. We hosted about twenty some odd students for about 2 weeks one summer and then I visited Tokai Mura the next and then hosted again the next summer. I got involved with the program when a teacher from Japan came to my junior high and picked some of my artwork off the wall to take back. I now have artwork hanging somewhere in Japan…though I did not get a chance to see it when I was there. The travel was so much fun and there was a lot of learning involved in all of the fund raising that we did for two years. If being sister cities means little more than the fact that 20 sheltered kids from Idaho Falls getting to experience a completely different culture…then it’s worth being “sister cities”. I don’t know if this program is still going on. I sure hope it is! More sister cities programs with other countries would be awesome if students could get involved.
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0 0 Like Jester pointed out, I think we need to make the one we have more successful first before trying to add more.
I also think it would help to clean up our community a little more so as to make our city more appealing to other countries. I know the Japanese take much more pride in there communities appearance, which is something we as Idaho Falls residents could learn from.
Last October I spent a week hiking and fishing in Yellowstone National Park and saw 3 different charter buses loaded with Japanese tourists, so it’s obvious their coming to visit our surrounding points of interest. I just think there should be more pride taken in our community as a whole, other then just the greenbelt area. What else do we have to offer tourists on a local level, other then the greenbelt and the little museum we have?
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0 0 Well then at the least maybe by sponsoring a week(end) festival dedicated to that city and culture, many will visit in that time period and we will learn more about them. It would be fun to have a Japanese cultural week.
Then imagine if we forged sister city relationships with a similar-type city in France or China or India or Pakistan?
It would require marketing money spent in that country to advertise the cultural celebrations in their honor, to attract them over here.
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0 0 That would be cool to eventually have a sister city with a number of different countries. It reminds me of Epcot in Florida. If you’ve never been to Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando I highly recommend it. They’ve got dozens of different countries that are represented there. You get to learn about each countries culture and sample their food, drink, art, etc. It’s an awesome experience to say the least. Then each night they have “illuminations” a laser light and fireworks show they put on that’s pretty incredible as well.
Ok…enough advertising. 
It’s worth checking out if you ever get the chance.
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0 0 The PR reported this morning that the United Kingdom wants to create a national lab like our INL, called Nexia.
We should watch that development. Perhaps there are ties we could forge with the inevitable company town that booms nearby their lab?
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0 0 I discovered Austin Texas has forged 11 sister city relationships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Texas
So Idaho Falls developing another sister city relationship or two would not be that unusual.
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0 0 Did anyone happen to catch the story on the news last night regarding 15 people from Idaho Falls going over to our sister city in Japan this weekend? Our mayor was supposed to go but he tore some muscles around his rotator cuff and is scheduled for surgery this weekend.
Regardless, it should be a great trip. Hopefully someone going on this trip, will take some pictures and share them with us here on Idahofallz.com
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0 0 Invite the Japanese to come chat with us here! Let’s get to know those folks.
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0 0 I just saw an advertisement on Channel 6. They’re going to have a special on our sister city on tonights newscast. Should be interesting.
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Is there any rule that we have to limit ourselves to just one sister city?
Well, based on the site you posted, both Pocatello and Ketchum have 2 sister cities.