Taipei secondary school student Lai Wei-li swayed awkwardly while trying to make music with a Saisiyat tribal instrument of dangling bamboo tubes strapped to her back.

"It's really cool and interesting. It's harder than it looks. I have to control my footsteps, sway my body back and forth, and co-ordinate with others," said Lai, while playing the "tapangsan".

Half Han-Chinese and half indigenous, it is not often that Lai gets to experience indigenous culture.

She can't speak the language of her tribe - the Paiwan. Her mother never learned it, and her maternal grandparents who can, live in a rural area and she only sees them twice a year.

This is the state of indigenous languages in Taiwan....