 The history of Sister Cities goes back to post-World War II when they were started as financial aid programs to countries in western Europe. Today, we're going to talk about the Sister Cities relations of Honolulu with Mr. Ed Hawkins. He's the Executive Director in the Mayor's Office of Economic Development. Welcome to the show, Mr. Hawkins. Thank you, Lily. Now, Mr. Hawkins, how many Sister Cities do we have in Honolulu? Honolulu. Honolulu right now has 33 sister cities, which seems daunting. It's a large number. All but 10 are in the Asia-Pacific region, and they trace their roots to primarily cultural relationships, mostly where immigrants came to Hawaii. So we have many that are in Japan, China, and the Philippines, but we have other countries as well, because of history or maybe other reasons, business, economic, those things as well. And how does Honolulu go about selecting a sister city or rather accepting any outside propositions to comment? Usually, it's a step-by-step process. It takes a little bit of time. There first has to be interest either from one side or the other. There needs to be some sort of a commitment to do this. And there needs to be some relationships. The City Council, the Honolulu City Council, approves these sister city relationships, and there are some guidelines. For example, cities should be of equivalent size. It doesn't have to be equal but equivalent. They have to share some sort of a relationship, like cultural, historical. And then some way to help the community, some way to help the people of Hawaii benefit from that relationship. So when those things are lined up, then the City Council will take that up, pass a resolution, and then it's then over to the executive, which is the mayor, and the mayor will decide to sign it and start the process. So from the passing of the resolution to the mayor signing, there is a time lapse? There can be. It could be, I wouldn't say concurrent, but certainly it could be short. It could be long based on some of the research that might need to be done in order to see what all the benefits are. I've actually seen some of the time lapse going up as long as 10 to 19 years. So what happened in that 10 to 19 years for those cities? How the resolution was passed and was another 10 to 19 years before it was signed? What happened during that period of time? I think what happens is basically trying to figure out what the benefits of that relationship would be. Each administration treats them differently. There may be some interest in some cities and city relationships. There may be other programs or issues that might come up for the administration. So you'd have to go back to the past administrations to see how that developed. But for this current administration, we're looking at, in fact, there are cities that have come to us for possible future relationships. So it's a process of taking a look at it and assessing all those requirements and stipulations that are stated in the chart. Now you mentioned other criteria. One being it has to be compatible size and it has to be reciprocal, economical, cultural benefits. Do they have to fulfill every single one of these requirements or just part of it? No, it's not all and. It's one or several. And usually what happens is there are usually several reasons why. And sometimes the population sometimes is interesting to work because in many of the Asian countries that are coastal countries that have heavy populated areas, there are millions of people. And certainly Honolulu being less than a million people, if you use that as the only criteria, it'd be very difficult to do. So we look at other areas as well, historical ties definitely in business, potential business ties. Talking about historical ties, I know we have a sister city in France. Would you mind sharing with us the historical significance between the two cities? Sure, that's one of the very first sister cities that was established. And it traces its roots back to the neat gay soldiers, the Japanese American soldiers who volunteered and fought in World War II. And they were instrumental in liberating the city of Brie and Bifontaine. In fact, there is a group called the Peace and Freedom Trail Foundation, that association and Brie that keeps up the relationship. And the sons and daughters of the full 42nd, the 100th, keep that relationship alive. So from that relationship developed the sister city relationship, which is still ongoing. And at significant points such as 10-year anniversary or 15-year anniversary, delegations either come here to Honolulu or a delegation from Honolulu goes to Brie to keep that relationship active and alive. And besides this, you know, visits of courtesy, are there any activities, exchanges that take place between the two cities? There are. It runs the gamut from cultural performances to educational, sister schools in the public schools, for example, elementary, middle school and high school levels. And if there are business opportunities as well, we encourage the chambers of commerce from both Honolulu and in our sister city to promote that relationship and possibly help investors and entrepreneurs from both of the cities and promoting their businesses. It doesn't have to be with the city in France, but could you list maybe more specific examples? For example, you mentioned cultural festivals. Have we actually launched any cultural festival abroad? And it's interesting that a lot of people love to come to Honolulu. So we really don't have to work too hard to invite other sister cities to come here. You're probably familiar with the Honolulu Festival in March, the Pan-Pacific Festival in June, and various other events throughout the year. The Honolulu Marathon, which is coming up in December. So these events are already there in place, and many of our sister cities come to participate in those. And they will bring many, many people, groups of people, performers, and they love to come here. The other cultural reach to the other side is not as extensive, but we do work with local nonprofit organizations, especially the chambers of commerce, to send delegations. The Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese Junior Chamber, sends their Cherry Blossom Queen and the court to promote relationships in China and other places. So we do follow up on those. Have we done any Hula competitions abroad, or performances abroad? For those kinds of things, we try to tap into the already established relationships and opportunities like how a tourism authority might do a tourism fair in either Japan or other places, and we would work closely with them and organizations locally to send Hula troops or chants or dances or performances or singers. And being that we are one of their sister cities in Japan, especially I think we have about four sister cities in Japan, will we accord any special privileges at this kind of international events? Well, we have five. We have five sister cities with Japan. The oldest being Hiroshima. In 1959, it was the first one that was established. And the reason for that is, of course, the war, the beginning and the end, if you will, the Pearl Harbor here and dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. And that has been very, very strong. So if you say special things accorded, we always, each of the cities has events throughout the year. For example, we just had an event this past weekend in Hiroshima called Honolulu Day. So they honor that relationship. And what we do is we try to support it. We prepared a message from the mayor, a video message, and we sent it to them so that they could show it to their people. And those kinds of things continue to promote the relationship that we have. Was there any promotion done locally regarding Honolulu Day? Because I'm hearing it for the first time. Well, no, because it's held in Hiroshima, and it's really for the citizens there. So especially in Japan, there's probably more halau's, than in Hawaii, all of Hawaii. So they love hula, and so they will bring hula troops to participate. They will have parades and so forth. So it's really locally for Hiroshima. But what they would like is support from the people of Honolulu to recognize that they're doing this. And that's why messages from the mayor or messages from the Chamber of Commerce, there was a delegation of the Junior Chamber that is going to stop by there to promote the relationship with their Junior Chamber. So those kinds of things help that relationship. And given the strong ties between Honolulu and Japan, I imagine you receive quite a few propositions from Japanese cities that are interested in becoming sister cities of Honolulu. Obviously, you cannot take on every one of them. How do you say no to those that you have to say no to? Well, we don't really say no. We tell them that we are interested, and that's true. That's not fitting. We are interested. There is a limit, though. There is a limit that's been established by the city council. So you can't have infinite number. So we take a look at them very seriously. And we have been approached by several other cities. Edogawa-ku, which is a special part of Tokyo. And there's another town called Usa, USA. I think that's part of the reason that they're trying to promote it in Kyushu. So we do get some interest. And what we have to do is, again, go back to the city council resolution and make sure that we meet all those requirements. And also that we're not overloading ourselves. As I mentioned, we have 33 around the world, not just in Asia Pacific, but around the world. So we have to assess them very carefully. And then, ultimately, it's going to take the signature of the mayor to promote this, to finalize a sister city relationship. Now, in the event that the resolution was passed, but no thing to tell the mayor was obtained, what happened to that relationship? Does it just dissolve automatically? No, it doesn't dissolve. There's a stipulation that at anniversary event, five, ten-year event, that each side should have at least a exchange of visits or a visit and an exchange of gifts. So it does say that. And usually in those relationships that have been kept is that there has been that event, maybe every five years or every ten years, but other kinds of relationships have not developed to the extent. Some are very, very strong, as you know, Nagaoka City. They bring their beautiful fireworks to the Honolulu Festival. Some are very strong and then the others are not as strong, but that doesn't mean that the other relationships are useless. So even if, what if there were no exchange of visits? I said sister city has been, you know, city has been a city of Honolulu for ten, twenty years and there's been no exchange of visits. What happened to those relationships? Then it's a process of taking a look. And it'll be my office. We're responsible for the sister city. So we'll assess why it came to that point. Does it still meet the criteria? Is there interest? So we would reach out to, hopefully, those who have either proposed it or nurtured it and also to the sister city in question and ask if they're interested in continuing the relationship. And if there's no interest, then we would recommend that those be dropped from the list. And how is the dropping process? Would you have to...? I haven't done one yet, but I would assume that we would start with a letter from the mayor saying that we haven't done this for such time that we feel, unless you agree otherwise or you think otherwise, that it's time to terminate. I think it's proper to inform our sister cities that any action like that can get their agreement. So plenty of exchanges and activities between Japanese cities and Honolulu. What about the Chinese cities? I think we have about... Is it five or six? We have six in China. And some are strong, just like in Japan. Some are very strong, some are not as strong. The strongest one seems to be with the city of Zhongshan. And Zhongshan is near Hong Kong. And it's the home of Dr. Sanyat Sen. And many of the immigrants from China came from that region. So that's the historical and cultural tie. There are organizations here in Hawaii, Sanyat Sen organizations, that continue to promote that relationship. In fact, this month, that group is going to Zhongshan. And they've promoted an educational program with a school in Hawaii Kai and with Zhongshan. So they'll continue to promote that relationship. And we support in the sense that we would send messages from the mayor and so forth. And we are looking at sending a delegation from the city this year. And later this month, we're looking at to continue promoting this relationship because earlier this year, in August, a delegation from Zhongshan visited Honolulu. And we did a number of things. We had dinners and a tree planting ceremony on the civic ground. So this time, in the return visit, they're proposing that we do a tree planting. So these kinds of activities continue to keep that relationship fresh and alive. So the group that came from Zhongshan, was just a representation of government officials or with any students? It was a vice mayor, delegation led by the vice mayor of the city and some government officials. But there were no students at that time. But there were other students that came for other activities. And again, the Zhongshan support group took them to the schools in Hawaii Kai and engaged in activities there. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Hawkins. We're going to take a little short break here. 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Welcome back to the show. This is Asian Review. I'm your host, Loli Oung. We have with us today Mr. Ed Hawkins, his executive director from the Mayor's Office of Economic Development. And today we're discussing the Sister Cities of Honolulu. So continuing on with our conversation, you mentioned Zhongshan. Are the other Chinese cities that, you know, could you give us examples of the exchange activities with Honolulu? The other ones, it's Hainan, Hainan Island. And also Shanghai, Fangshan District. And... And that's a new Sister City, right? That's a new Sister City. And Qingwendao is another one. And several others. But the strongest one is Zhongshan. But after that, Chengdu is also a Sister City. Chengdu might be the next. And part of the reason is that there is a delegation from here that goes there every year with the ladies from the... Which program is that? It's the Narcissus Court, right? And they travel through some of the cities and they stop in Chengdu. And so that relationship has been going for some time. We hosted a group from Shanghai, Fangshan District earlier this year. And they are very, very interested in getting into business and economic relationships. And yet to be determined. We don't know exactly, but Fangshan District happens to be a center for cosmetics. And so that was one of the discussion topics that we had at the time. And this particular... I mentioned that there will be a delegation going from here to Zhongshan for the 20th anniversary. This is the 20th anniversary of our relationship. So we were hoping to stop by Shanghai, but it seems like this time we'll not be able to. But we're going to continue that discussion with them to see if we can get into the economic sector as well. So do these are private groups that go to our Sister Cities? Do they travel separately from our governmental groups? Are they only collaboration in these mission trips? They have travel with city and state officials and also University of Hawaii because there's healthy educational relationships as well. So they've done that. And if there's time to coordinate that, we will certainly do that. But the other aspect of travel, international travel is the budget. And so we can't be too profligate with the city funds. So we try to time it in very significant years like this 20th anniversary. We want to be very responsible for spending funds, as you can imagine. And if we collaborate with these private groups or nonprofit groups that are going, then that makes the visit much easier to do. And that's what we try to look at. Is the city allowed to take on sponsorship? Suppose our Sister Cities wanted to sponsor a delegation over. Are we allowed to take on those kind of sponsorship? What do you mean by take on this sponsorship? Because we're limited in our funds. So if they came up with the proposition that we're going to sponsor a group from your government to visit our government, are we allowed to accept that? Oh, I see. Yes. And many times that happens. For example, in Kaohsiung, which is Taiwan is our sister city, and they would host an international event, maybe a city development or a greening of the city event, and they would extend an invitation to mayors of their sister cities, including Honolulu. So we would receive the invitation to the mayor, and they would offer to host, they would offer to pay for that particular trip. So we would work with them, and we would work with the mayor's office and see if that's possible, and if the mayor cannot go, then we would recommend perhaps a representative to go. So yes, we can. We would have to report that to the city council and make sure that all the approvals are there. And who does the mayor typically take along with when he goes on this trade missions? On trade missions, usually it's based on the topic of that particular conference. If there's a conference. For trade missions, he would work with the local business community. Sometimes business people have relationships already, already established relationships, and they would be part of the delegation. So it would be a collaboration between the city and the local, for the trade missions, it would be the local business community and business leaders that have already established relationships. Well, you gave us a wonderful example as far as cultural and educational exchanges in terms of business and trade, because I'm a numbers person. Could you provide any numbers, you know, economic numbers that have transpired from the sister cities relations? Well, economic numbers, I don't think I can give you a dollar amount, but there are some significant things. For example, tourism is a big draw for Hawaii. So as we travel to these sister cities and talk about programs and collaborating on events, one I might mention which is coming up is a possible exchange between a Hawaii Bicycle League and one of our sister locations and a hemiprefecture that has a bicycling event. So we're looking at, in the future, trading or exchanging teams that our teams would go there and then maybe in alternate years their teams would come here. So it promotes tourism and sports tourism. So that's one of the things that hasn't resulted yet. It's one of those things that we'll work on. The others would be like the film industry. The Honolulu Film Office is in our office as well. And we have many films and movies and TV programs, as you know, that come here. And we're looking at reaching out to other countries as well to see if we can draw their film industry here to film and to locate. And that would be great for economics not just for the leisure industry but for the workforce as well. So beyond trade and cultural, economic and educational, what about exchanges of technological know-how in municipal services such as sanitation, waterworks, infrastructure? Has there been any exchange of those kind of solutions? Yes, we have. And again, what we have in our city office, we just established the office of resiliency. And this office takes care of looking at the effects of rising the sea level, global warming and recycling and green energy and all these things to make Hawaii much more self-sufficient and green. And we've reached out to our sister cities that are interested in the same thing. We hosted groups from Korea. We've hosted groups from Japan and China. We've showed them the H-Power, which is our recycling, the city recycling system located in Campbell Industrial Park. And then we talked about sea level rises and all the relations that's happening. And they're going through similar problems as well. So we have gotten emergency people and climate change people together to discuss solutions because knowledge is also, exchange of knowledge is also important in these sister city relationships. Now, I know San Juan and Puerto Rico is one of our sister cities. So when Hurricane Erma went through it just about the whole island, did we provide any humanitarian efforts to our sister cities? From the city itself to the city, I'm not aware that we have. There were some volunteer groups. The Red Cross certainly did. Hawaii Red Cross and donations were encouraged to the Red Cross. So any support was done through that mechanism. I just want to take a moment to quickly share the webpage of the Office of Economic Development so that our viewers know to go there to look at the full list of sister cities. Let's take a look. So these are all about 33 sister cities. Most of them, and I would say in Japan, China, and Philippines. All but 10 are in the Asia Pacific region, right? Yeah. So I think it's no coincidence that our largest ethnic populations are Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos. So I think the local population provides a very strong movement in the sister cities movement. That's correct. And we get some more ideas, too. There are some from the Philippines, for example. The two major areas of the immigrants are from Ilocos, which is in the northern part of the Luzon, and then also from the Visayan region, the Shibu in that area. And there's been recent proposals from some of the other areas that would like to see sister city relationships. And I noticed, sometimes, when I go and visit them, he's presented with a symbolic key to the city. What is a symbolic key? Well, the key to the city usually is given to either visitors or locals that a city is very proud of. And so cities will present them to dignitaries or Nobel prize winners or sports stars or people like that. The most recent, I think, in Honolulu that was given was to the Hokulea when they returned to Honolulu from their several year around the World Origin Cruise. So those are the events that the... and it's up to the mayor to select. Well, thank you so much. Well, coming to the end of the show, just very quickly, if you could, let us know what's in the future of Honolulu's sister cities program. What are some of the things that we can expect to come out of the program? I think we went through the list of the 33 and others that are being asked to be part of the sister city network. And for me, the important thing is, first of all, catalog them to make sure we know which ones are active, what's been active. We talked earlier about some that have not been active for a long time. So we need to catalog. And then the second thing we need to do is we need to prioritize. What's important? What would be the best for the people of Honolulu, not just to have a sister city relationship or have cultural relationship, but let's take a real good look at what benefits we can gain from that. And then the third thing that I'd like to do is to go ahead and act on them. Come up with programs, hard programs. One of the things that I like to talk to my staff about is that we talk about infrastructure, right? Hard infrastructure like roads and sewers and things like that. Those are important, but there's also soft infrastructure, which is education, social services and things like that. And as we mentioned, knowledge from other sister cities could be very useful. So coming up with programs and after we prioritize them and putting our effort and energy into those, I think that's the future. Sounds like you got a really solid plan in place. That's wonderful. Well, I agree with technologies and modern communication methods. The world is becoming smaller and global relations are becoming more complex and all the more vital and irreplaceable is the personal relationship and face-to-face meetings that transpire from the sister cities' relations. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Hawkins, for being on the show today. And we look forward to chatting more and having you on the show again in the future. Thank you so much. Thank you.