Community Corner

Around the Rivers: Globetrotter Travels to 'Sister City' in Haiyang, China

Kim Perez is chairwoman of the Haiyang Focus Committee for the Cranberry Township Sister Cities Association.

Around the Rivers features stories from other local Patches. This article originally appeared on Cranberry Patch.

Thanks to her husband’s jet-setting job with Westinghouse Electric Co., Kim Perez has always been something of a globetrotter.

“We’ve lived abroad three times, all with Westinghouse,” she said. “We’ve lived in Belgium twice and in the U.K.”

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Now settled in Cranberry, she got the chance of a lifetime in September when she accompanied her husband on a business trip to China and met with the mayor of Haiyang as part of the Cranberry Township Sister Cities Association.

“It was very cordial, and he went out of his way to extend hospitality to us,” she said of meeting with Mayor Jiang Shili. “I thought it was a great start to a relationship and to make that face-to-face connection.”

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Cranberry first came into contact with the coastal town in the Shandong Province two years ago when  proposing a sister city relationship.

Like Cranberry, Haiyang is home to a growing number of technological industries, including Westinghouse Electric and the State Nuclear Power Technology Co. Unlike Cranberry, Haiyang has a population of 690,000; Cranberry Township has 28,000 residents.

After creating a local organization, the newly formed Cranberry Township Sister Cities Association sent a letter to China accepting the partnership in August 2010.

With her affinity for other cultures and looking for something to get involved with after her children left for college, Perez quickly signed on to the organization. She is chairwoman of the group’s Haiyang Focus Committee.

“I joined Sister Cities because of my interest in people from other cultures,” she said. “I find that very fascinating having lived abroad.”

Perez got her chance to explore Haiyang when her husband, Ric Perez, president of operations at Westinghouse, began to fly frequently to China to oversee the construction of several power plants. Perez occasionally accompanies him on the 15-hour flights.

“This year, lo and behold, he began doing two weeks in the U.S. and two weeks in China,” she said. “I’ve joined him on every other trip.”

Sensing it was the perfect opportunity for a side adventure, Perez -- after working out the details with the mayor’s office -- arranged to meet Jiang as a representative of the Cranberry Sister Cities Association.

Perez’s husband, Westinghouse executives, Haiyang Deputy Mayor Li Yuanhui and a communication specialist were among those who attended the meeting and luncheon Sept. 13 at a large hotel on the beach.

At the meeting Perez gave the mayor a leather-bound binder of photos and news releases that the Cranberry Sister Cities Association compiled. She also presented to him a glass plaque with logos of the two communities and inscriptions in English and Chinese. The township sent a similar plaque when it first accepted the sister-city designation, but the gift never made it to the mayor’s office. 

“I said a few words about Cranberry and our sister city and how excited we are to represent Chinese culture,” Perez said. 

Perez also was treated to a bus tour of Haiyang, including a look at the preparations the city is making for the opening ceremonies next year of the Asian Beach Games, an Olympic-scale international competition that will be in Haiyang.

A people watcher at heart, Perez enjoyed soaking up the city’s culture, including a glimpse of a red-clad wedding party. As the bride and groom arrived at their destination, fireworks and cannons were set off in the city, she said.

She noted similarities to Western culture; many families had similar values and lifestyles to Americans.

“It’s a very neat country. It's a very developing country, and it’s a country of many developing layers,” she said. “It's exciting to see how it will develop in the next 10 years.”

Plans are in the works for the Cranberry association to entertain Haiyang officials.

“Our hope is that in 2013, or later next year, we could host a delegation in Pittsburgh,” she said.


 


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