Slaves of the Japanese Colonial Empire

When the Nationalists forces withdrew to Taiwan in 1949, one of their chief aims was to safeguard their minority rule over the locals.

And one way to do so was to assert their cultural superiority, and by "re-sinicizing" the "descendents of the Yellow Emperor" who had lived under Japanese colonial rule for half a century.

"This meant that the social effects of a relatively successful Japanization program had to be reversed," wrote Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang.

But unfortunately, pejorative terms like "nuhua" (奴化, or to transform into slaves) used in the government official language had the unfortunate effect of fostering discontent and leading to a sense of alienation among the island's formal colonial subjects.

After all, it was bad enough to have so many political masters - especially when the new political masters were sometimes much worse than their former colonial counterparts, but to be described as a slave was certainly adding insult to injury.