Nashville-Taiyuan: driven by economics

After more than a decade since it became an official sister city with Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in northern China, Nashville, Tennessee, has developed deep cooperation and friendship with its Sino-sibling through a variety of cultural and economic exchanges.

"Our partnership started in 2007, and really began because there was an economic partnership between the state of Tennessee and Shanxi province in the 1980s," said Heather Cochran Cunningham, executive director of Sister Cities of Nashville, a volunteer organization that promotes exchanges between Nashville and all of its eight sister cities.

Cunningham said the relationship of the two cities so far has developed from the initial iron and steel industry in the '80s to broader cultural and economic exchanges.

She said that China is the fourth-largest trading partner of the Nashville metropolitan area, at $539 million, and the third-largest trading partner of the entire state of Tennessee.

"A number of large Nashville-based companies have long-standing business relationships in China, including Jack Daniels, Gibson, Tractor Supply and CAT Financial," Cunningham said.

There are also many industry exchanges and delegation visits between the two cities, Cunningham said.

A delegation from Nashville attended the 2018 Taiyuan Energy Low Carbon Development Forum last year. The forum was an important opportunity for the program as the Nashville mayor's office has been working towards transferring more of Nashville's energy consumption to renewable solutions.

"In January, the vice-mayor from Taiyuan led a delegation to Nashville, where they met with our vice-mayor," Cunningham said, adding that other organizations have also come from China to learn about Nashville.

In terms of educational exchange, an email pen-pal program was established between 33 students at Martin Luther King High School and 36 students at Taiyuan Affiliated High School in 2010.

In 2013, a reciprocal high school exchange was launched between Nashville students and students at Yuying High School in Taiyuan that continues today.

"We have been working with Yuying High School for about the last nine years," Cunningham said, "and through our student ambassador program in Nashville, we have students from a variety of public and private high schools applying to go on our exchanges."

She said eight students from different schools in Nashville went to Taiyuan last summer.

"We always receive students from Yuying High School too," Cunningham said, adding that 10 students and two teachers from Taiyuan visited Nashville for a week during the winter holiday.

"They're home hosted, they learned about the Nashville government, culture and history," she said. "We took them to see the key sites and they lived with the family here, they went to school for a day and we just tried to immerse them in the culture of Nashville."

"And conversely, they do the same thing," Cunningham said of American students going to China.

She said students from Nashville were able to learn about kung fu, dragon festivals and other special holiday activities in China.

"They did paper-cutting and calligraphy, they made special foods to eat, and they went to Jinci Temple," she said. "So, they're doing the same thing — just learning all about Taiyuan."