At a general store in a thickly forested mountain valley in eastern Taiwan, villagers are not speaking Mandarin Chinese nor Taiwanese but, surprisingly, a variant form of Japanese.
Aohua village in Nanao township in Yilan County is home to indigenous Atayal people, whose language stems from the days when Japan pushed thorough Japanese-language education and promoted "Japanization" during its 50-year colonial rule of the island up to 1945.
"My father repeatedly told us before he died that Japanese people did us two good things and two bad things," said 55-year-old store manager Sicyang Isaw.