First in a series
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Councilman Clarke and host Prof. Kwon
For the first half century of its life, Culver City Sister Cities has been a pleasant-enough sounding cultural exchange group, with an accent on amorphous.
You come here.
We go there.
We have all seen Koreans, Canadians, Mexicans.
Nice to play host to visitors from another side of the world. But to the 99.5 percent of Culver City residents who don’t make the international trips, Sister Cities may sound too abstract.
No more.
City Councilman Jim Clarke, who returned Sunday night, was a prominent participant in Sister Cities’ just-completed 10-day excursion to Iksan City, South Korea, along with half-a-dozen other Culver Citians.
They sprinkled Culver City/Los Angeles cultural dust all over one of the most mysterious, least known corners of the exotic world.
And here is the true meaning of Sister Cities’ cultural exchanges, when a city leader such as Mr. Clarke returns home from his first Korean excursion with a necklace of travel and observational nuggets that you never would have known about.
One of the more heavily traveled members of the community, Mr. Clarke and Sister Cities Vice President Nancy Browning both stayed with Iksan City families throughout their visit.
They had closeup opportunities to inspect the city of 300,000 that is known as the Gem Capital of the region.
Something else to consider: Iksan City residents live within presumed reach of North Korea's dictator, one of the most dangerous and unpredictable tyrants on the planet.
(To be continued)
