The US ambassador to Vietnam has recorded an original rap and music video ahead of Tet, the lunar new year, risking inevitable ridicule by styling himself as “the boy from Hanoi”.
“I’m from Nebraska. I’m not a big city boy,” raps Dan Kritenbrink in the song, released on the US embassy in Hanoi’s Facebook group. “Then three years ago I moved to Hanoi.”
He goes on to sip tea, walk the streets with an entourage, which includes bona fide Vietnamese rapper Wowy, and check a sheet of paper that appears to contain the lyrics.
US ambassador to Vietnam Dan Kritenbrink just released this rap song to wish everyone in Vietnam a Happy Lunar New Year.🧧The full original video can be found on the Facebook of US Embassy in Hanoi. pic.twitter.com/ERAi9SJDAf
— Khang Vu (@KhangXVu) February 8, 2021
Kritenbrink has been the US ambassador to the country since 2017. He has also served as senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council.
The words to the song, a mixture of English and Vietnamese, call on Vietnamese to “get ready to party from Hà Giang to Cà Mau” and “Clean the house now, friends are on the way.”
Kritenbrink also voices his enthusiasm for cà phê sūa đá – iced coffee sweetened with condensed milk – “not cappuccinos” and the new year celebrations, which he calls “tops. I love the hot spots and hot pots.”
One Twitter user called the track a “full assault on the art of rap” but conceded that Kritenbrink “seems genuine and sincere”.
“I’m assuming it’s intentionally awful,” wrote another, though he admitted that he himself was “no rap connoisseur”.
Facebook commenters were more forgiving, calling the song “so cute”, “super cute” and “too cute”.
While Vietnam has kept its coronavirus tally to a low 1,850 cases and 35 deaths – thanks to targeted mass testing and strict quarantine measures – the new year celebrations have been affected by the pandemic.
Vietnam shut schools in 22 provinces ahead of the lunar new year holiday and ended a ruling Communist party congress early on Monday following the detection of a new cluster of coronavirus cases in northern areas last week.
