Ah Bang Ah is still publishing a new book "Ari Goes Forward with a Question Mark", talking about going back and forth between the tribe and the city when he was a child, talking about music creation in his native language, and how to see his appearance more and more clearly along the way.

As soon as the video camera was turned on, a loud voice came from the computer: "Hello~"

Ah Bang sat in the room, a purple shirt, bright eyes, full of energy, a pair of white animal tooth earrings dangling next to his cheeks. It's hard to imagine that this was her fifth media interview of the day.

Golden singer Abang A still released his latest work – this time not a song, but a book: "Ari Goes Forward with a Question Mark".

From singer, actor, host all the way across the border to publishing, she confessed that until the time of writing the preface, her heart was still full of "question marks": "What do I have to introduce as a person?" Will anyone be interested?" While the question mark was also thinking, "Try it, you haven't done the book."

At the age of forty, she sorted out how a Paiwan girl born in the Han metropolis kept returning to her hometown to find her roots, and gradually saw her appearance more clearly in this twist and turn.

Those opportunities when she began to make ethnic language music and co-create with family women; and how does she view this accumulation of roads and continue to play a cross-border bridge today?


Images | provided by Lianjing Publishing

Dark skin, big eyes, am I different from you?

Ah Bang has two families, one in downtown Kaohsiung and one in the Taitung tribe, and she has been constantly wandering between these two places since she was a child.

In order to let her children go to the good school district, her parents decided to go to the city to develop, her dark skin, big eyes, at first glance is quite different from the neighbors, often call her "Fanzai". At that time, she did not feel the discriminatory meaning of this name, and when she grew up, she realized that this label brought pain to the indigenous people.


Image| A burst Facebook

In Ah Bang's eyes, she is no different from others, she plays with all the children, is very lively and naughty, and is often chased and beaten by her mother. A classmate once said to her, "My mother said you are a fanzai and we can't play together." I don't know why, but after that we made an appointment with the park."

Children are always pure, understand that there is actually no barrier between people, and return to the essence of friendship, so stereotypes and ethnic discrimination are all affected by acquired education and social atmosphere.

Fortunately, Ah Bang was not concerned about these discrimination, and once a boy laughed at her as a black-faced third mother (Mazu), and she in turn ordered them to kneel: "Don't you respect the gods when you see them?" Immediately silence the other person.

The minority majority is not important, let's return to the essence: the pursuit of "beauty"

I asked Ah Bang how she felt about her experience as a "minority" when she grew up, and what did the definition of minority and majority mean to her?

Ah Bang said that he did not blame those classmates when he was a child, the society at that time was relatively closed, everyone did not have a sense of autonomy, and what others said, he followed it.

"But in recent years, the overall consciousness has increased, and each of us will increasingly think, what is the original appearance of ourselves? Willing to go back and look for the real look." She observed many of her native friends who worked in the city, slowly returned to their hometown and tribal residence, did a revival job, and embraced their mother culture.


The picture | A burst Facebook

People don't necessarily do this because of a sense of crisis that a few cultures are dying, but rather, "Oh! This thing is beautiful yay!" "This traditional culture is so cool, how can no one know!" 」 When Ah Bang said these two sentences, he particularly intensified his tone, and for a moment I seemed to enter the tribe and heard them chatting.

"At the end of the day, it doesn't have to do with ethnic groups, it doesn't have to do with minorities or majorities, but it has to return to the essence." For Abang and the revivalists of indigenous culture, this is a natural, a pursuit of beauty.

And people who don't understand the beauty of this culture and insist on discriminating against "minorities", Ah Bang feels: "That's their own problem, I don't want to spend too much time changing others, I just want to focus on what I want to do." 」

Play music together, it doesn't matter if something goes wrong

Maybe that's it, not deliberately changing who to prove an attitude, so that Ah Bang's music and performances always have a sense of ease in "playing".

She had pulled her cousin Brariyan's dance troupe to the stage to dance together; as a school teacher, she brought the children to the stage and let them experience a real performance; when filming the "Thank You" MV, she also sang and danced with her clan around the church, instantly like "The Nuns Are Crazy", and she felt that she was Amber Gober.

"It doesn't matter if it's wrong, just do it, let's play music together!" Ah Bang always tells everyone this.

Whether it is the "Dongpai Sansheng Generation" that she began to record her grandmother's ancient ballad in 2014, the "Nayawa Nanguag Ring Island Tribal Radio Program" that began in 2015, or the stunning "Kinakaian Mother's Tongue" in 2020, all reflect the spirit of Ah Bang's "playing music".


Images | provided by Lianjing Publishing

Ah Bang said that she made music in her native language, not to tell others what her culture was, "After all, everyone is under a lot of pressure, listening to music is to ask for ease, do not want to hear and teach." 」

She wants the audience to hear the music first and then naturally hear the "culture" later. "Attract him with your music, like your rhythm, your singing voice, and then wrap the culture in the music."

Because of this music-first, fluid and open attitude, Ah Bang's native music does not need to struggle with "Is this too subversive?" And what is interesting and can make the music richer, it is generously added to it, and it becomes the music we hear, combining jazz, punk mixing, R&B, or ethnic mixed Taiwanese, a variety of styles.

Overseas performances saw the world's indigenous people, and also stepped into the metaverse

In recent years, Ah Bang has also been invited to perform overseas, and the rich culture and music of various places have brought her a lot of nourishment.

For example, at the "Rainforest World Music Festival" in Malaysia, Ah Bang saw indigenous singers from North America and Europe, all dressed in ordinary fashion, performing electronic music and popular music, not at all like the traditional impression of "indigenous people should look".

"They have jumped out of the frame and don't have to deliberately prove their identity through external forms. It's about showing, 'What I am now, is what I am.'" Let Ah Bang find that sharing the indigenous culture can be more flexible, and the point is that you have to be very comfortable.


Images | provided by Lianjing Publishing

Ah Bang's cross-border not only stepped overseas, but also stepped into the most compact "meta-universe" in recent times.

In January 2022, she released a series of millet wine NFTs at the "A toot Sports Concert", which can also be exchanged for millet wine at the performance site, full of online and offline integration.

Ah Bang shared the original intention of her action: "If the culture that is about to disappear in the real world has the opportunity to be preserved in another world, I would like to try it." 」 "I feel like the metaverse is like a 'museum,' where many of the things we see in the museum may no longer exist, but in the museum, he will always be remembered."


The picture | A bang Facebook

I finally asked Ah Bang, will she position herself as a "translator", will she bring people to understand the music and indigenous culture in her native language through various translations? She shook her head and said, "I feel like a bridge, and the people I've worked with describe me that way."

I imagined it as a very wide bridge, and the two sides of the bridge were often linked to different people, and when they were willing to cross and gather, all the new and interesting things happened on this bridge. All this is not for anything, it is fun, happy, no longer distinguish between boundaries, let us multi-faceted together.


Image| A burst Facebook

postscript

At the beginning of the interview that day, I introduced myself to Ah Bang, "Hello, my name is Amazing."

Ah Bang immediately burst out laughing: "Amazing ~ Hello, I am Wonderful!" The golden singer immediately made a mischievous joke.

Sure enough, it was the girl who had been lively and mischievous since she was a child, relaxed and playful, innocent and happy!

(Interview part I: "There are too many goddesses, when ordinary people are still more special" Interview with "ordinary goddesses" A bang: like forty years old, continue to walk forward with question marks)