Yamane Keiko with Ishigaki Islanders
1 media/IMG_5125_thumb.JPG 2019-11-18T15:46:58-05:00 Kate McDonald 306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5f 35 7 Photo courtesy of Yamane Keiko. plain 2021-06-18T19:55:06-04:00 Yamane Keiko 20190826 114621 20190826 114621 Yamane Keiko Used with permission. Hiroko Matsuda HM-0027 Kate McDonald 306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5fThis page is referenced by:
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2019-11-18T15:46:58-05:00
Travels between Yaeyama and Taiwan
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google_maps
2021-10-07T12:26:18-04:00
Beijing
Taipei
Ishigaki
39.92284, 116.40120
25.0383, 121.5641
24.3333, 124.1500
1943-1946
Hiroko Matsuda
Yamane Toraji
When Yamane Keiko went back to Ishigaki Island for holiday, she was offered a marriage with Yamane Toraji, who was working in Beijing and had just come back home for holiday.
Yamane Toraji's parents were originally from Tokushima Prefecture. They migrated to Ishigaki Island in order to work for Nakagawa Toranosuke's reclamation project. Although his parents passed away at a young age, Yamane Toraji was supported by his older brother and made a career as a communications engineer.
Keiko and Toraji got married in October 1943. Soon after the wedding ceremony, they headed to Taiwan with the intention of moving to the South Sea Islands, which was a League of Nations mandate territory under the control of Japan. After the South Sea Islands came under the control of the Japanese government in 1919, many Okinawans migrated there, especially islanders from the main island of Okinawa.
Keiko and Toraji tried to find the way to migrate to the South Sea Islands from Taiwan. However, they had to give up and stay in Taiwan because migration was already strictly regulated by the government. Toraji began to work for the Taihoku Telegraph Office at the end of 1943, and Keiko gave a birth to their first daughter in Taiwan.
After the war, they repatriated to Ishigaki Island by LST in May 1946.
