Photos by John Pivetti Jr, Gardener PRNS
End of April 2022 at the JFG
Bells for Peace
on August 5th, San Jose-Okayama Sister Cities joins 50 (fifty) cities throughout the USA and thirteen prefectures in Japan in commemoration of 75 years of peace following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. The nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15am on August 6th. Japan, being 16 hours ahead of us here on the West Coast, USA, we will be ringing simultaneously here (Aug 5th, 4:15pm PDT) and in Japan (Aug 6th, 8:15am).
Tokuzenji in Oda City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan will be ringing their temple bell simultaneously with San Jose (on Zoom) and others in San Jose will be joining us.
The event will be on the SJBetsuin Video YouTube channel (access here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNzzDwOSv9YWh7nNfh1IjGw
In this time of the COVID19 world pandemic, it is good to remember that we are still working with our friends everywhere around the world through sister cities to become a peaceful collaboration of culture and community.
California-Japan Sister City Network
There are 105 officially recognized Sister City relationships between cities in California USA and Japanese cities in the country of Japan. Among them, the San Jose-Okayama Sister City relationship is one of the oldest. The California-Japan Sister City Network (CJSCN) was formed in 2018 to help all of the sister cities with Japan in networking, sharing ideas and resources and to spread the awareness of the great benefits of citizen-to-citizen diplomacy. We thank Consul General Uyama, his wife and Consulate staff for allowing us to experience his hospitality and for the opportunity to connect with other sister city organizations who also love their relationships with their sister cities in Japan.