About | Jump To:
2021 Portland Kaohsiung Sister & Friendly Cities Exhibition Video
Below is a video of the Portland Kaohsiung Sister & Friendly Cities Exhibition which was displayed at Kaohsiung City Hall Lobby in Taiwan during the entire month of November 2021.
Click to View/Download Video in Google Docs
About the Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association
Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association (PKSCA) promotes people to people exchanges of educational, artistic, and cultural activities. PKSCA maintains several programs that focus on and support our mission.
These include the annual Portland Rose Festival Dragon Boat Race, participation in the Portland Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade, and Starlight Parade, annual good will delegation exchanges between Portland and Kaohsiung, and support of Portland Chinese organizations and programs.
Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation – EIN: 93-1018684
View our Current Board Members
View our Current Race Committee Members
What is the Sister City Program?
Portland has nine sister cities and one friendship city. Our oldest relationship is with Sapporo, Japan, since 1959. Under the leadership of Mayor Bud Clark, Portland gained seven more sister cities: Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1983; Ulsan, South Korea, and Ashkelon, Israel, in 1987; Suzhou, China, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and Khabarovsk, Russia, in 1988; and Mutare, Zimbabwe, in 1991. City leaders George Passadore, Jim Francesconi, and Joe D’Alessandro joined Italian Honorary Italian Vice Consul Andrea Bartoloni to establish the Bologna, Italy sister city relationship in 2003. In 2022, the Portland City Council voted to designate Lviv, Ukraine, as a friendship city.
The process of becoming a sister city is established in City Code. First, there must be an established non-profit organization made up of Portland citizens who pledge to keep a relationship active. The committee must be prepared to “undertake the financial and staffing requirements necessary to properly administer such a relationship.”
As far as the financial requirements, each non-profit must maintain at least a $10,000 balance in its bank account on a regular basis. Once an association obtains either friendship status or sister city status, the association must submit financial reports to the Director of International Relations on a regular basis. The city ordinance requires sister city associations to be both financially independent of and accountable to the Mayor of Portland. All sister city association programs are funded by donors and grants, not by the City of Portland.
As far as the staffing requirements, the association should conduct regular meetings and events in the Portland area throughout the year.
Once an association has been a friendship city for at least a year and maintains both the staffing and financial requirements, Portland City Council will vote on changing its status from a friendship city relationship to a sister city relationship.
The Director of International Relations works in the Office of Government Relations and is the liaison between the sister city and friendship city associations and the City Council.
Source: Portland International Relations Program
Affilliates
History of the PKSCA
The Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association was founded in November 1987. The Portland City Council officially approved Kaohsiung as Portland’s Sister City on May 11, 1988. At Mayor Clark’s suggestion, the original six member board, comprised of President Dr. Eng Lock Khoo, Gene Chin, Steven Louie, Liu Chi, Judith Rees, and Ted Schneider, was enlarged to fifteen, in order to represent the many facets of the metropolitan community.
During the Association’s first goodwill mission to Kaohsiung, Commissioners Dick Bogle and Mike Lindberg signed the sister city agreement with Kaohsiung’s Mayor Nan Cheng Su on October 11, 1988. To signify the cities mutual tie with the Pacific Ocean, the Association presented a unique gift, a freshly caught, 36 pound Tillamook Bay Chinook salmon.
When the Association selected dragon boat racing as an annual cultural event, Mayor Su promptly donated two boats as a gift to the Association. A third boat was donated by the Republic of China and the fourth was purchased by the Association. All of them arrived at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 on March 31, 1989 aboard Evergreen’s container ship, Evergoing. On April 10, the elaborately decorated boats made their debut during the eye-opening ceremony which included a special Buddhist ceremony and water effects by the Portland Fire Bureau’s fireboat. The boats were launched from the lawn of Waterfront Park by means of a 75 foot crane.
The boats which were 40′ 6″ long and 5′ 4″ wide, each weigh 1760 lb. (800 kg). These sturdy boats are well-suited for the choppy waters of the Willamette River. Portland’s boats were slightly shorter than the typical Kaohsiung dragon boat in order to fit inside ship containers for overseas transport. In June 1989, Portland’s first dragon boat races were held with 31 teams competing. In 1990, the Association purchased three additional boats, donating one to the newly built Oregon Convention Center. It is suspended from the south tower for tourists and conventioneers to enjoy year round.
The Association’s most memorable goodwill mission occurred in October 1990, when 36 Portlanders participated in the Taiwan Area Games in Kaohsiung. Their well-publicized activities caught the attention of then newly-appointed Mayor Wu Den Yih. The following June, Mayor Wu visited Portland during the Rose Festival and officiated at the opening of the 3rd Annual Dragon Boat Races with 60 local and international teams.
During the goodwill mission on October 10, 1991, the 80th anniversary of the Republic of China, the Association gave Kaohsiung a state-of-the-art, US made ambulance in appreciation of their assistance in introducing dragon boat racing to Portland. In honor of the occasion, Kaohsiung donated two additional boats to the Association.
Dr. Eng Lock Khoo was the first president of the Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association. He served nearly six years. In 1993 John Grimes became the second president, followed by Mike Chang in 1994. Mike Chang concluded the Sister School Agreement between Shu-te High School in Kaohsiung and the David Douglas School District in Portland. A sister university agreement between Portland State and National Sun-Yat Sen University in Kaohsiung was also concluded. In 1999 Dr. Richard Cole became president and served for six year. In 2005 Tom Crowder became president.