Taiwan immigrants made major contributions to agricultural development on Ishigaki Island
In recent years, the Ishigaki City government has devoted itself to developing tourism and agriculture, avoiding an industrial model of mass production and development, and instead thinking about how to use the power of design to drive the local economy. They planned the USIO Design Project, aiming to redesign ten local agricultural specialty products and widely inviting designers from various countries to take part. The pineapple of Ishigaki Island is one of these agricultural products.
From now until August 17, the 2014 Taiwan Design Expo held at the Taitung Sugar Factory will feature an Ishigaki section, showcasing the results of the USIO Design Project.
A monument on Ishigaki Island highlights the contributions of Taiwanese immigrants
The Taiwanese immigrants on Ishigaki Island initially had many disputes with the local people, but today the local people gradually recognize the contributions of Taiwanese immigrants to local agriculture. Matsuda Yoshitaka, a reporter for the Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun, has long paid attention to the Taiwanese immigrants of Yaeyama, conducting long-term interviews about their life histories and compiling the articles into a book; two years ago Taiwan also translated and published this book, titled Taiwanese of Yaeyama. In April this year, Ishigaki Island published a Chinese-Japanese bilingual picture-story book, Dance of the Dragon: The Pineapple Story of Yaeyama, which uses the simple style of a grandfather telling old stories to his grandson to recount the contributions of Ishigaki Island's Taiwanese immigrants to local agriculture. This book was written by Miki Ken, a reporter from Ishigaki Island. He is 74 years old this year and has served as a reporter and editor-in-chief of the Ryukyu Shimpo; after retirement he continues to write. In the afterword of this book he mentions: "While explaining the history of Ishigaki Island's Taiwanese immigrants to visitors, I deeply felt the need to write an easy-to-understand book so that outsiders, and even local residents, could understand this part of the island's history." Ishigaki Island, Japan, was invited to take part in this year's Taiwan Design Expo. August 8 to 10 is the Ishigaki Festival, and Ishigaki City sent a total of 14 people to Taiwan to participate. Among the Japanese delegation, a film crew had originally also been expected to come to Taiwan to shoot the itinerary of Ishigaki people in Taiwan, but this was later called off because of the typhoon a few days earlier. The reason they intended to come to Taiwan is that this film in preparation takes Taiwanese of Yaeyama as its subject. Ishigaki Island participates in the Taiwan Design Expo, using design to drive the local economy
Matsuda Yoshitaka, a reporter for the Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun, wrote a book documenting the life histories of Taiwanese immigrants on Ishigaki Island; two years ago Taiwan published this book, titled Taiwanese of Yaeyama.