This module elucidates the construction of border/boundary that demarcates "the metropole"and the "colony" of the Japanese colonial empire. This particularly focuses on the border/boundary between Okinawa/ the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan with a particular attention to individuals who travels around Yaeyama Archipelago.

Any boundary demarcates those who are inside from those outside. The boundary between colonial Taiwan and the Yaeyama region between 1895 and 1945 demarcates the Japanese nation from the colony. This was a product of ''"continental imperialism' to use Hannah Arendt's words in which colonizers dominate those who are geographically close and culturally akin. As Edward Said states, discourse of modern imperialism divide us from them, but it should be noted that, in East Asian context, the split between the colonizers and the colonized was directly associated with the geographical boundary that demarcates them.

The boundary between Japan (the metropole) and Taiwan (the colony) was not instantly determined by the governmental treaty, but constantly negotiated by people who travelled across the border zone. This module demonstrates that people of Japan and Okinawa were active agencies of the Japanese colonial empire, and their discourse and practices of nationalism were incorporated into the colonialism.