In the wake of 1988's "Return Our Mother Tongue" movement, Hakka student associations began appearing at many schools. Chang Cheng-yang joined one of these in his junior year at college. "It was only after joining a Hakka student association that I realized how much of a stranger I was to Hakka culture. I didn't even know there were other dialects of Hakka.
民國七十七年的「還我母語」運動之後，學校紛紛成立了客家研究社，張正揚在大三加入了台大客家社，「參加客家社我才知道自己對客家如此陌生，我甚至不知道還有其他不同語音的客家人，我不僅對台灣其他的客家地區陌生，對自己的家鄉美濃也很陌生。」