My friends have said it, my mum has said it, my grandparents have said it and so have I. We might have just had some good sushi, or been strolling through spotless, orderly streets during our third visit to Japan that year. At some point, someone—either with a smirk or with an unreadable, deadpan expression—might say: “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind being colonised again.”

There’s an implicit understanding that the speaker is referring to Japanese rule over Taiwan, not just because of the context, but because what have any of our other colonisers ever done for us? This unspoken swipe at the Spanish, the Dutch and the Chinese is usually part of the joke; we younger Taiwanese tend to just laugh it off and leave it at that. But once in a while, it becomes clear that the older folks actually mean what they’re saying, and I start to wonder why there appears to be some truth to such quips.

• Tags: Issue 37, Taiwan, Ting-Jen Kuo