The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

A Tale of Two Cities: The Sister Cities of the Area

What do Rockville, Md., Pinneberg, Germany and Jiaxing, China all have in common? They are all related; they are sisters, to be exact.

A sister city is an official partnership between two cities in which each city helps to educate the other about a foreign culture. The partnership between Rockville and Pinneberg began in the 1957, when then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower created a program to help partner up American cities with World War II-ravaged towns in Europe and Japan. Today, the partnership between Rockville and Pinneberg is managed by a nonprofit organization, the Rockville Sister City Corporation, which organizes exchanges, parades and even German Christmas decorations in the city mansion.

Rockville also began a sister city partnership with Jiaxing, China in 2009. This was considered an important step forward because of the large population of Chinese-Americans in Rockville, according to the organization’s website.

According to Rockville Sister City Corporation President Jim McConkey, there are great benefits of the program for residents of both cities.

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“The exchanges are designed to gain an understanding and respect of another culture and lifestyle regardless of any language differences,” said McConkey.

Montgomery County also has a Sister Cities program. It currently is partnered with the county of Morazan, El Salvador and the two districts have organized exchanges. The partnership began in 2009, and has worked well since. A group from El Salvador has come to Montgomery County, and County Executive Ike Leggett has visited Morazan.

Recently, the Montgomery County Sister Cities program has begun searching for another sister county. In 2011, the program considered the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh as a possible sister county. Although the two are not currently sisters, according to the Sister Cities program, they have had exchanges, and residents of Montgomery County have visited Beit Shemesh. Due to resistance to this partnership, negotiations to make this an official sister county were postponed.

Though he says he hasn’t followed the issue closely, McConkey said he understands what the county is facing.

“I don’t think any Sister City proposal can be made without some opposition,” said McConkey. “When Rockville proposed to partner with Jiaxing, it was protested by a group of 17 people objecting to a partnership with a Communist country.”

According to the Washington Post, the Montgomery County Sister Cities program will now look further into building a sister city relationship with the city of Gondor, Ethiopia.

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