30-second overview: On the night of October 3, 2020, the Album of the Year at the 31st Golden Melody Awards went to an all-Paiwan electronic music album, "kinakaian — Mother Tongue." The winner was Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie, Chinese name Chang Ching-wen), a Paiwan singer-songwriter born in 1981 in the Chenghsing Tribe (Eastern Paiwan) of Jialan Village, Jinfeng Township, Taitung. She debuted in 2003 as the duo Abao & Brandy, winning Best Vocal Group at the 15th Golden Melody Awards; after disbanding in 2004, she temporarily left music and worked as a nurse for nearly a decade; in 2016 she returned with her personal all-Paiwan songwriting debut "vavayan · Woman"; in 2019 she collaborated with electronic music producer Dizparity to create "kinakaian." Accepting the Album of the Year award onstage, she said: "I want to tell every indigenous person watching on TV: don't waste your talents, and don't rely on them." This was a pivotal moment for Taiwan's indigenous-language music moving from sidebar to main stage.
On the night of October 3, 2020, at Taipei Music Center. The 31st Golden Melody Awards ceremony. The closing Album of the Year award.
When the winner was announced, the presenter read out: "kinakaian — Mother Tongue."1
This was an all-Paiwan electronic music album. Since the Golden Melody Awards established the "Best Indigenous Language Album" subcategory in 2007, indigenous-language works had mostly remained within that subcategory — receiving recognition within their ethnic classification, but rarely breaking into the main categories of Album of the Year, Song of the Year, or Producer of the Year.1
The 2020 Golden Melody 31 was one of the rare exceptions. That same night "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" won three awards: Album of the Year, Best Indigenous Language Album, and Song of the Year ("Thank You"), from 8 nominations.1
Walking up to accept the awards was a 39-year-old woman with short hair, wearing dark loose clothing, who looked more like a neighbor's aunt than most of the performers on that stage. Her name was Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie), Chinese name Chang Ching-wen.
📝 Curator's note: The significance of the Album of the Year award is not "an indigenous singer won an award." It's "the aesthetic standards of an indigenous-language work were seen on equal terms by the mainstream evaluation system." Those are very different things.
Chenghsing Tribe, Then Moving to Kaohsiung
Abao was born on August 25, 1981, in the Chenghsing Tribe of Jialan Village, Jinfeng Township, Taitung County (Eastern Paiwan).2 Both her parents came from this tribe; she moved with her family to Kaohsiung as a young child and grew up there.3
This migration pattern is very common in the demographic history of Taiwan's indigenous peoples: from the 1970s to the 1990s, many indigenous families from Taitung and Pingtung moved to cities for work, and their children grew up in metropolitan areas with declining indigenous language ability across generations. Much of Abao's later project of "reclaiming her indigenous language" was built on the everyday linguistic material provided by her mother Wang Chiu-lan — her own Paiwan foundation was something she re-learned from her mother as an adult.4
2003: Debut as Abao & Brandy in R&B
In 2003, Abao formed the duo "Abao & Brandy" with Brandy Chen (Chen Hai-wen), releasing a self-titled R&B album.5
The album was almost entirely in Mandarin. The two brought American R&B harmonies and rhythms into the Mandarin market, making them a distinctive R&B duo in the early 2000s Mandopop scene. In 2004 they won Best Vocal Group at the 15th Golden Melody Awards with that album.5
And then that same year, the duo dissolved.
As for why they broke up, her later interviews offered no dramatic reason. The general account was: "Music wasn't the focus of life at that time."6 She returned to a realistic path — her background of five years at Chang Gung Nursing Junior College gave her a clear off-ramp: become a nurse.
📝 Curator's note: The 15th Golden Melody's Best Vocal Group was considered representative of a new generation that year. Disbanding a year later and vanishing for five or more years was an extremely counterintuitive decision for a 22-year-old woman who had just won an award.
2004–2014: A Decade as a Nurse
During this decade she did almost nothing related to music.6
A 2004 Golden Melody Award winner leaving the music industry for a decade amounts to "disappearing" by the rules of the Mandopop industry. But what she did wasn't "disappearing" — she returned to a job with real-world weight, then waited until she knew what relationship she wanted to have with music before coming back.
The importance of this period would only become apparent after her 2016 return: she no longer needed music to make a living; nursing gave her an economic foundation independent of the record market. This is what later enabled her to make an all-indigenous-language album, do electronic music experiments, decline commercial compilation invitations, and choose to work with an independent electronic music producer like Dizparity — to a large degree, this period built that freedom of choice.
2014: "Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" — Ancient Songs Across Three Generations
In 2014, Abao formally returned to music through her indigenous language — and the first thing she did was not a solo album, but recording "Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" together with her mother Wang Chiu-lan and grandmother Liang Chiu-mei.7
All three generations on this album sing Paiwan ancient songs. Grandmother, mother, and herself — three generations simultaneously in the recording studio, preserving Eastern Paiwan tribal songs that were on the verge of being lost. Abao's role on this album was closer to midwife: she preserved things her mother and grandmother could sing but had never recorded, while also placing her own voice in the same sound space as the two elders.
"Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" was not a commercial work; it was her admission ticket back into the indigenous-language world. From this point on, all her musical work revolved around the matter of "mother tongue."
2016: "vavayan · Woman" — Her First Personal All-Indigenous-Language Songwriting Album
In August 2016, she released her first personal songwriting album "vavayan · Woman" (vavayan meaning "woman" in Paiwan).8 The producer was Arai Juichi, a Japan-born producer who made music in China and long collaborated with independent Asian musicians.8
"vavayan · Woman" was entirely in Paiwan but fused rock, soul, reggae, and R&B. The album had two distinctive characteristics:
- Indigenous language does not equal nostalgia. The musical styles were contemporary, even cross-cultural (reggae from Jamaica, R&B from African American music).
- Female perspective. The album title "vavayan" is Paiwan for "woman," and the whole album revolves around female experience — not women in traditional tribal narratives, but contemporary women who go out in the world, think, get angry, and get tired.
Arai Juichi later described the experience of producing this album:
"When Arai Juichi was producing Abao's album, he felt her humor as a host, combined with Abao's sense of mission toward her mother tongue and the R&B style from her past Abao & Brandy days — that combination was what completed the up-tempo style of 'vavayan · Woman.'"9
At the 28th Golden Melody Awards in 2016, "vavayan · Woman" won Best Indigenous Language Album, and Arai Juichi won Best Album Producer at the same ceremony.8
2019: "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" — Indigenous-Language Electronic Music
The second personal album "kinakaian — Mother Tongue," released on December 30, 2019, pushed things even further: all-Paiwan + all-electronic music.10
The arranger was Dizparity (Yeh Po-chien), a Taiwanese independent electronic music producer. Their collaboration began at the 2018 CMW music festival in Canada; Dizparity had done a complete electronic performance with no vocals, and Abao watched from the audience.11 Back in Taiwan, the two exchanged messages, Dizparity sent beats, Abao did casual wordless humming, and a working chemistry gradually grew.
"Dizparity did a complete performance with no vocals. After that, the two returned to Taiwan and communicated through messages; Dizparity sent some beats for Abao to freely hum along to, and from these small trial fragments a collaborative chemistry gradually developed."11
This collaborative mode was not the standard Mandopop production approach of "singer + arranger" — it was two independent musicians responding to each other through texture and phonetic quality. Dizparity's electronic music was not designed as a sugar coating to make Abao's indigenous language "more accessible"; it treated the indigenous language as an equal sonic material: placed at the same level as synthesizer timbres, rhythmic patterns, and atmospheric drops.
The album's vocabulary came from her mother Wang Chiu-lan. Abao described the collaborative method between mother and daughter:
"My mom and I work more like we're chatting when we write the lyrics we want. The vocabulary Mom gave on the second album 'kinakaian — Mother Tongue' was even more, and harder — that's the most real feedback."12
Not looking things up in dictionaries, not conducting research surveys — recording conversations between mother and daughter at home. Everyday spoken language became the raw material for lyrics.
"Since We Have Our Own Language to Use, Why Not Use It?"
In interviews around the time of this album, Abao repeatedly returned to one idea that became the core of her musical philosophy:
"Actually, making mother-tongue music is a kind of liberation. For example, if I want to try faster-paced songs — like what people think of as Beyoncé-type dance music — it's really hard to do in Chinese. Mandarin has its own beauty, but if you want to make music with strong rhythmic drive, English isn't our language either. Since we have our own language to use, why not use it?"13
This statement inverts the framework that Taiwan's indigenous music has long been placed in: indigenous-language music ≠ cultural preservation ≠ museumification. For her, the indigenous language is a technical condition for making future pop — its syllables, tones, accents, and phrasing are all different from Mandarin and English, and certain grooves can only be sung in the indigenous language.
She put this logic even more directly:
"I feel that old and new must be blended together. Young people may have no opportunity in their daily lives to learn these songs. If ancient melodies are embedded in popular music, at least young people can hear the genes of ancient songs through pop songs."13
"Ancient melodies into popular music" is not preservation, it's translation: letting the youth of the 2020s encounter the genetic material of 1950s–1980s tribal songs through musical forms they actually listen to.
Golden Melody 31, 2020: The Significance of the Album of the Year Award
October 3, 2020. The 31st Golden Melody Awards ceremony.
That year's circumstances were unusual due to COVID-19: the awards ceremony was postponed by two months and the judging process was given more time to adjust. The judging panel chair Chen Chen-chuan said in a later interview:
"Due to COVID, the judging panel had more ample time to carefully read non-Mandarin works. They specially invited indigenous language teachers to explain the meaning of lyrics to the judges line by line, so that in the first round of voting, 'Best Lyricist had nominees from almost every language.'"14
The judges invited indigenous language teachers to attend and translate lyrics line by line — a first in the Golden Melody Awards' judging history. What was the result? The Album of the Year went to an all-Paiwan work.
This difference in process matters: even under the premise of "needs translation to be evaluated," an indigenous-language work could still be judged the best. Mainstream Mandopop and indigenous-language works were placed on the same scoring rubric, no longer relying on "ethnic bonus points."
Her Album of the Year acceptance speech was quoted by multiple media outlets:
"I want to tell every indigenous person watching on TV: don't waste your talents, and don't rely on them."
"A little more understanding, a little less misunderstanding. If you still don't understand, please listen to this album again; if you still don't like it, please listen a second time."15
"Don't waste your talents and don't rely on them" has two layers of meaning: inward (toward the indigenous community), she says don't take for granted the artistic ability given by your ethnic heritage, don't stay in your comfort zone; outward (toward non-indigenous audiences), she also steps back from the label of "indigenous artistic talent" that Mandarin-speaking society habitually applies: my work is the result of labor, not an ethnic bonus.
📝 Curator's note: "Don't rely on your talent" is extremely rarely heard in the Mandopop industry. Most award recipients thank their talent, thank God, thank their parents. She frames talent as something that needs to "not be relied upon" — a rare professional ethics statement.
"Because There's No Writing, the Other Senses Are Amplified"
Paiwan is one of the languages without a written form. Abao's thinking about this was actually positive:
"I think it's precisely because there's no writing that the other senses are amplified."
"Passing through ancient and modern, crossing the barriers of language — our feelings are actually so alike."13
No writing = oral transmission = memory = body = rhythm = contemporary electronic music can connect. This seemingly paradoxical logical chain explains why she and Dizparity collaborated so smoothly: electronic production already doesn't depend on words, doesn't depend on semantics — it relies on rhythm, timbre, and atmospheric sensory transmission.
Her singing electronic music in Paiwan is not "forcing indigenous language into electronic music" — it's letting electronic music encounter the sound source it was always meant to encounter.
Nanguaq Records: From Individual to Mechanism
After 2020, Abao was not just making music for herself. She led "Nanguaq" (Nanguaq Music), a label and production institution centered on indigenous music.16
Nanguaq doesn't take the already-defined path of "indigenous music industry development" — it takes the role of enabler that lets young indigenous musicians make the music they want to make. The 2024 "tlupupia" and the 2025 "886 Waves" performance at New York's Central Park were both works developed within the Nanguaq framework.17
The significance of this institutional move is: not relying on a single star singer to carry the representational burden of an ethnic group. Abao allows the Nanguaq Girls and other Nanguaq collaborating musicians to not have to retrace her path of "one person shouldering all of indigenous-language pop," because the label already exists.
Family: Mother's Tongue, Grandmother's Voice
The album title "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" is itself a family narrative. Her mother Wang Chiu-lan provided vocabulary; her grandmother Liang Chiu-mei had contributed her voice on "Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" — all three generations have been recorded.
Her mother Wang Chiu-lan passed away in February 2021 at the age of 66.18 "kinakaian" was released in December 2019 and won its Golden Melody awards in October 2020 — her mother witnessed all of this.
Abao's description of her mother's influence is concrete: her mother was a tribal missionary and singer in her youth, and after marriage combined homemaking with hosting and performing at banquets. She was not an academic indigenous language researcher; she was a person living inside the indigenous language. Abao's collaboration with her was an exchange of life-language material between two generations, not the one-way transmission of "elders teaching the younger generation."12
Conclusion: "I Hope Everyone's Playlist Has at Least One Indigenous-Language Pop Song"
After Golden Melody 31 in 2020, Abao said in a Marie Claire interview:
"I hope that in the future, everyone's playlist will have at least one indigenous-language pop song."19
Breaking this down, it's a concrete goal: indigenous-language pop songs standing on equal footing with Mandarin, English, and Japanese pop songs in everyday playlists. Not the ritual moment of "specially playing some indigenous music" — but "scrolling through a Spotify playlist and the next track happens to be Paiwan, happens to be Puyuma, happens to be Amis" as an everyday occurrence.
This goal hasn't been reached yet. In 2026's Mandopop streaming landscape, the vast majority of everyday playlists of Taiwan users include no indigenous-language songs. But Abao used a single 2019 album, "kinakaian — Mother Tongue," to raise the ceiling of possibility by one level.
How would she summarize all of this herself? Perhaps in those two sentences she said when she accepted the Album of the Year at Golden Melody 31:
"Don't waste your talents, and don't rely on them."
That's true for herself, for the next generation of indigenous musicians, and for the entire Mandopop industry: talent is the starting point, not the answer.
Further reading:
- Wei Ru-Xuan (zh only: 魏如萱) — Another path in the same generation of Mandopop music, "making non-standard sound heard" (Wei Ru-xuan's doll-like voice × Abao's indigenous electronic music — two languages in the expansion of sonic boundaries)
- Chen Chien-chi (zh only: 陳建騏) — A Mandopop producer's "absent author" identity as contrast (Chen Jian-qi making the sonic frontier of mainstream Mandarin / Abao making indigenous-language future pop)
- Chou Tzu-yu (zh only: 周子瑜) — The other end of the spectrum of identity strategies for same-generation Taiwanese female musicians (Chou Tzu-yu's K-pop industrialization vs. Abao's ethnic identity × local production)
- Popular Music and the Golden Melody Awards (zh only: 流行音樂與金曲獎) — The structural significance of indigenous-language works taking Album of the Year for the first time at Golden Melody 31 in 2020
- Taiwan Popular Music (zh only: 台灣流行音樂) — 2020 as the watershed year when indigenous-language music moved from sidebar to main stage
- Taiwan's 16 Indigenous Peoples Cultural Map (zh only: 台灣原住民族16族文化地圖) — The contemporary landscape of Paiwan language, tribes, and artistic forms
- Indigenous Language Policy (zh only: 原住民族語言政策) — The policy context of indigenous language revitalization and its complementarity with Abao-style musical practice
- Huang Shao-yong (musician) — Co-producer of "kinakaian — Mother Tongue"; the two jointly lead the "MINETJUS Electronic Music Production Decoded" indigenous-language electronic music course, now in its fifth session
References
Footnotes
- 31st Golden Melody Awards Winners List — Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, Ministry of Culture — October 3, 2020, 31st Golden Melody Awards; "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" won Album of the Year and Best Indigenous Language Album; "Thank You" won Song of the Year; 8 nominations, 3 awards; the Album of the Year was for the first time taken by an all-indigenous-language work. ↩
- Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie) — Wikipedia — Paiwan name Aljenljeng Tjaluvie, Chinese name Chang Ching-wen, born August 25, 1981, in the Chenghsing Tribe of Jialan Village, Jinfeng Township, Taitung County (Eastern Paiwan), Paiwan people. ↩
- Abao and the Mother Tongue — Mirror Media 2020 Interview — Both parents came from Chenghsing Tribe; Abao moved with her family to Kaohsiung as a young child; family language ability declined across generations; as an adult she re-learned Paiwan through her mother Wang Chiu-lan. ↩
- Abao "kinakaian" In-Depth Interview — The Reporter — "In her songs, everyone can dance"; discusses in detail the process of Abao's collaboration with her mother and Dizparity; Paiwan vocabulary collected through everyday conversations. ↩
- Abao & Brandy — 15th Golden Melody Awards Best Vocal Group Records — 2003, Abao & Brandy R&B duo debut; with their self-titled album won Best Vocal Group at the 15th Golden Melody Awards in 2004; disbanded that same year. ↩
- Abao's Decade as a Nurse — Mirror Media Profile Interview — After Abao & Brandy disbanded, Abao stepped away from music for about 10 years; used her five-year Chang Gung Nursing Junior College nursing background to work as a nurse; didn't officially return until 2014. ↩
- "Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" Three-Generation Paiwan Ancient Songs — Nanguaq Official Materials — 2014's "Three Generations of Eastern Paiwan" was jointly recorded by Abao, her mother Wang Chiu-lan, and her grandmother Liang Chiu-mei; contains Eastern Paiwan tribal ancient songs; this was the starting point of Abao's formal return to music through her indigenous language. ↩
- Abao "vavayan · Woman" First Personal Songwriting Album — 28th Golden Melody Best Indigenous Language Album — August 2016, first personal all-Paiwan songwriting album "vavayan · Woman" produced by Arai Juichi; won Best Indigenous Language Album at the 28th Golden Melody Awards; Arai Juichi won Best Album Producer at the same ceremony. ↩
- Arai Juichi on Producing Abao's "vavayan · Woman" — BIOS Monthly — Arai Juichi describes producing Abao's album as experiencing the triple combination of her "host's humor + sense of mission toward her mother tongue + past R&B experience," which shaped the up-tempo style of "vavayan · Woman." ↩
- Abao "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" Album Information — Nanguaq — Released December 30, 2019; all-Paiwan, all-electronic; arranged by Dizparity, produced by Huang Shao-yong + Abao, supervised by Arai Juichi; the album title "kinakaian" is Paiwan for "mother tongue" (literally "mother's tongue"). ↩
- Abao × Dizparity Collaboration Origin — The Reporter Interview — The two met at the 2018 CMW music festival in Canada; Dizparity had done a complete electronic performance with no vocals; after returning to Taiwan they communicated through messages, Dizparity sent beats, Abao did wordless humming, and from small trial fragments a collaborative chemistry developed. ↩
- Abao and Her Mother's Lyric Vocabulary Collection Method — VERSE Interview — Abao: "My mom and I work more like we're chatting when we write the lyrics we want. The vocabulary Mom gave on the second album 'kinakaian — Mother Tongue' was even more, and harder — that's the most real feedback." ↩
- Abao on the Liberation of Mother-Tongue Music and the Blending of Old and New — The News Lens — Abao's complete discourse on the three core philosophical quotes: "making mother-tongue music is a kind of liberation," "old and new must be blended together," and "because there's no writing, the other senses are amplified." ↩
- Golden Melody 31 Judging Panel Chair Chen Chen-chuan on the Judging Process — Blow Music — Chen Chen-chuan: in the COVID period the judges had more time and invited indigenous language teachers to explain lyrics to judges line by line; in the first round, Best Lyricist had nominees from almost every language; mentioned the Taiwanese + Paiwan fusion in Abao and Li Ying-hong's "Tjakudain / Helpless." ↩
- Abao's Golden Melody 31 Album of the Year Acceptance Speech — JUKSY — Abao's complete acceptance speech: "I want to tell every indigenous person watching on TV: don't waste your talents, and don't rely on them." "A little more understanding, a little less misunderstanding. If you still don't understand, please listen to this album again; if you still don't like it, please listen a second time." ↩
- Nanguaq Music Label Introduction — Abao-led indigenous music label, established around 2020; artists under the label include Nanguaq Girls, Arase, HengJones, R.fu and others; positioned as an enabler "letting young indigenous musicians make the music they want to make." ↩
- Abao 2024 "tlupupia" + 2025 "886 Waves" New York Central Park Performance — Nanguaq Discography — 2024's "tlupupia" in collaboration with Arase, HengJones, R.fu, and Nanguaq Girls; 2025's "886 Waves" New York Central Park performance, an international extension of the Nanguaq brand. ↩
- Wang Chiu-lan (Abao's Mother) Passed Away February 2021 — Mirror Media — Abao's mother Wang Chiu-lan passed away in February 2021 at age 66; "kinakaian — Mother Tongue" was released December 2019 and won its Golden Melody 31 awards in October 2020 — her mother witnessed the complete birth, release, and award-winning journey of this album. ↩
- Abao on Future Hopes — Marie Claire / ELLE Taiwan Interview — Abao's hopes after Golden Melody 31: "I hope that in the future, everyone's playlist will have at least one indigenous-language pop song" — broken down, a concrete goal: indigenous-language pop songs standing on equal footing with Mandarin and English in everyday playlists. ↩
- Abao on the Indigenous Music View That Life Is Song — The Reporter Full Statement — Abao: "Indigenous people's songs are all about life. If you look at the lyrics of ancient songs, they too are describing the details of this life. As long as it doesn't depart from life, for me that is indigenous song." Indigenous-language music = the continuation of contemporary life. ↩
- Hsu Chia-ying × Abao × Brandy "Cut the Song" 2021 Collaboration — KKBOX — In 2021, Hsu Chia-ying invited Abao and Brandy to collaborate on "Cut the Song"; the three-voice version revived the connection from the 2003 Abao & Brandy era; the lyrics are written for girls and women. ↩
- Abao × Li Ying-hong "Tjakudain / Helpless" Taiwanese + Paiwan Fusion — Golden Melody 31 Nomination Records — In 2020, Abao collaborated with Li Ying-hong on "Tjakudain / Helpless"; Chen Chen-chuan commented that it "blended Taiwanese and Paiwan very well"; multiple Golden Melody 31 nominations. ↩