Students from the Affiliated High School of Fuzhou Institute of Education and Lincoln High School in Tacoma show their handmade paper-cutting artwork on June 26. WANG ZHENGXING/CHINA DAILY

During the pandemic, the offline exchange programs between the two cities had to be put on hold, but many initiatives demonstrated how close the cities had become to one another. Fuzhou and Tacoma began setting up relationships between schools, facilitating exchanges between Chinese students studying English and Tacoma students studying Chinese.

"From 2020 to 2024, our school exchanged letters with Lincoln High School over 50 times. In 2023, we relaunched our Pen Pal project with Lincoln High School, pairing 35 of our high school freshmen and sophomores with 38 students from Lincoln High School studying Chinese," said Wei Jian, head of the Affiliated High School of Fuzhou Institute of Education.

The school hosted a Tacoma student group led by Mayor Woodards in June and another U.S. student group in July.

"Through diverse activities such as traditional Chinese cultural classes including calligraphy and paper-cutting and friendly sports matches like basketball and rugby, such visits help to strengthen understanding and friendship between Chinese and American youth, laying a solid foundation for future relations," said Wei.

"So often our young people live in their communities and they don't know about the entire world," Woodards said. "I think when they get out of their surroundings and have an opportunity to travel across the world and meet other young people who are just like them, it makes not only our cities a better place, but it makes our world a better place."

The sister-cities program is about promoting peace through people, and the idea is that the more people know about communities worldwide, the more they understand that we are more alike than we are different, she said.