Newly elected Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has gotten a ton of press in China for being the first Chinese- or Asian-American mayor in her city, and thus she was invited to attend a state dinner next week at the White House honoring visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. Her husband couldn't attend -- he's a doctor and didn't want to cancel his patient caseload, so his patients should feel pretty lucky he chose them over a state dinner -- so she invited her longtime friend, newly appointed San Francisco mayor Ed Lee. (We assume the invitations went out before Lee's interim appointment was finalized.)

Quan and Lee go way back to their days as Berkeley students in the 60s, and both have received huge amounts of international press, especially in China, for being the first Asian-American mayors in two prominent U.S. cities. As the Chron notes, Oakland's and San Francisco's ties to China date back to the 19th Century, and to this day 44 percent of the cargo offloaded at the Port of Oakland comes from China. [Chron]