Read below and you will know why the old man said such words. Lee Teng Hui also known as Iwasato Masao was a soldier serving the Imperial Japanese Army in WW II. So was his brother who died for Imperial Japan, and his father servced in Japanese colonial police in Taiwan.
Lee was born to a Hakka family in the rural farming community of Sanzhi (Sanshi-kyō
, Taipei County (Taihoku, now New Taipei City), Taiwan (under Japanese rule at that time). As a child, he often dreamed of traveling abroad, and became an avid stamp collector. Growing up during the Japanese rule of Taiwan, he developed a strong affinity for Japan. His father was a middle-level Japanese police aide and his brother served and died in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lee—one of only four Taiwanese students in his high school class—graduated with honors and was given a scholarship to Japan's Kyoto Imperial University, then known as Kyoto Technical School. A lifelong collector of books, Lee was heavily influenced by Japanese thinkers like Nitobe Inazo and Nishida Kitaro in Kyoto. In 1944 he too volunteered for service in the Imperial Japanese Army and became a second lieutenant officer of an anti-aircraft gun in Taiwan. He was ordered back to Japan in 1945 and participated in the clean-up after the great Tokyo firebombing of March, 1945. Lee stayed in Japan after the surrender and graduated from Kyoto University in 1946.
Lee enjoys a warm relationship with the people and culture of Japan. Lee often assures Taiwanese audiences that Japan will support Taiwan if it formally announces its Taiwan independence. Taiwan was colonized by Japan from 1895 to 1945 and natives of the island who grew up in that period, such as Lee, attended schools where Japanese language, songs, and stories were taught. Lee's father was a low-level Japanese police aide; his older brother died serving in the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II and is listed in Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. During his youth Lee had a Japanese name, Iwasato Masao (岩里政男
. Lee speaks fondly of his upbringing and his teachers and has been welcomed in visits to Japan since leaving office. Lee's admiration and enjoyment of all things Japanese has been the target of criticism from both the Pan-Green Coalition and Pan-Blue Coalition in Taiwan, as well as from mainland China, due to the anti-Japanese sentiment formed during and after World War II.
In his retirement Lee became the first former president of a country known to participate in cosplay. The cosplay was centered on Heihachi Edajima (江田島平八 Edajima Heihachi), a hawkish principal of a boarding school in the Japanese manga Sakigake!! Otokojuku (魁!!男塾
(Weekly Shōnen Jump). His cosplay interest and eponymous "school" called "輝!李塾" was mentioned on his personal website, beginning in late 2004. This manga comic was a comedy centered on a fictitious reform school for contemporary boys, modelled under the Imperial Japanese Army.
In a May 2007 trip to Japan, Lee visited the Yasukuni Shrine to pay tribute to his older brother. Controversy rose because the Shrine also enshrines World War II Class A criminals among the other soldiers. He is also expected to receive the first Shimpei Goto award,[citation needed] named after the former Japanese colonial governor of Taiwan, and to give a speech on 7 June regarding the global situation after 2007.[6]