The coastline unfolds like an old photograph of North Borneo, wind-sculpted, wide and timeless. A sudden gust brushes my face and pulls me back to Sampang Mangazou, where harsh sand stings like a memory carried across the sea. In that moment, it feels as if our Austronesian ancestors move with the wind, gathering again at the Amis Music Festival in A’tolan, the ancestral homeland of the Amis people.
Travelling to Taitung for the Indigenous Music Festival becomes more than a journey. It becomes a quiet reminder that identity is never confined by modern borders. There is no singular national narrative. Instead, there is a lineage of cultural resilience that is ancient, shared and fluid. It invites us to separate the ideals of nationhood from the deeper pride of identity.
This is the strength of the Austronesian world. In the midst of contemporary life, it teaches us that belonging can transcend country and that ancestry continues to live in wind, in sound, and in memory.
