Travels between Yaeyama and Taiwan
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.
