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• 1 media/Ara Kinue 5.mp3 2019-11-18T15:46:55-05:00 Between Taiwan and Yaeyama 15 plain 2020-08-14T19:09:20-04:00 Hiroko Matsuda

  Compared to travels between Okinawa and North and South America, it was far easier to travel between Keelung and Taketomi Island. It took only a day by ferry and Japanese needed no passports to travel between the islands. Thus, it was not unusual that Yaeyama immigrants go back and forth between Taiwan and their home islands.

  Ara Kinue also stayed for a while in Taketomi Island and attended a school while she was about 10 years old.

  I had no memory about Taketomi Island, but was raised in Taiwan from the very young age. I was back in Taketomi Island for a while when I was in the third grade of the elementary school. We celebrated the New Year in Taketomi, and I was wearing kimono with obi band in the Japanese-style. Then, kids on the islands curiously looked at me and laughed at me in Japanese-style kimono. Because I was only the third-grade pupil, I was so embarrassed, and could not go out. 

  Although she was born on Taketomi Island, she was raised as "Japanese immigrants" in colonial Taiwan since the early age. Thus, going back to her "home island", the local children recognized her as exotic and different from the local people.