By Hub City Times staff

MARSHFIELD — Marshfield has a new sister city following a meeting held Oct. 27 at the Marshfield City Hall. Mayor Chris Meyer and Xu Pingguan, the deputy mayor from Zhangjiagang, China, signed a formal document finalizing a sister city relationship between the two municipalities.

“This is a big deal for Marshfield. … We’re a small community in central Wisconsin, but we’re an important community,” Meyer said. “We have a lot going on here, and that is recognized across the world by other organizations like other communities and other countries.

“We’ve had a number of Chinese students come to school here in Marshfield through an exchange program over the last few years, including at the University of Wisconsin, so this was an opportunity for us to form a sister city relationship with a community from China and further develop that relationship. We certainly have services that they are interested in, and they’ve got an incredibly interesting culture that we can learn a lot from as well.”

Pingguan said he was happy with the continued relationship and new partnership with Marshfield.

“We felt that the sister city relationship would encourage building the further relationship and also strengthen our friendship which already exists,” he said through an interpreter. “As a matter of fact, our relationship with Marshfield has started quite a while ago. … Now with the sister city relationship, we would also like to explore other areas of the relationship and collaboration if possible.”

The delegation from Zhangjiagang toured Marshfield, stopping first at City Hall Plaza to sign a memorandum of understanding and create the official sister city relationship and later at Mid-State Technical College, Marshfield High School, and Marshfield Clinic.