A song with lyrics that goes “Ting Ting Tang Tang Tang” has been stuck in the heads of many TikTok users recently. Numerous people have used it in many videos on the video-sharing site, especially those dancing to it, but only a few are aware of the song’s origin.
If someone puts the words “ting ting tang” on TikTok’s search bar, results such as “ting ting tang dance” and “ting ting tang dance tutorial” come up, fueling the curiosity of many TikTok users.
The song is from a remixed version of the Vietnamese pop or V-Pop song titled “See Tình” by Vietnamese actress and singer Hoàng Thuý Linh.
Among the few TikTok users who know about the song’s origins is Tita G. After her friends invited her to dance to it at a Christmas gathering. After some research, Tita G discovered it was in another language.
“Aaminin ko sa inyo, nung una akala ko ibang language siya. Like Japanese, Korean, Chinese? Kasi naman yung mga languages naman na ito ay talagang magkakatunog, di ba? Surprisingly, this is VietPop or Vietnamese pop,” she added.
“See Tình,” translated as “see love,” went viral worldwide. It sparked many dance videos to the song, including one from the official TikTok account of the GMA Network game show Family Feud. Its host, Dingdong Dantes, danced with model and actor Eric “Eruption” Tai and his Family Feud teammates Kiko Matos, Kenjhons Serrano, and Mammoth Estroso.
Released on February 20, 2022, the song started trending after a K-Pop fan account clipped videos of South Korean groups such as BTS and Twice performing on stage with a sped-up version in the background.
Several viral TikTok dance videos posted by South Korean artists, such as rapper Lee Seung-hoon, Super Junior member Shindong, and The Boyz member Sunwoo, followed shortly.
In an interview with L’Officiel Vietnam magazine, Hoàng said that while she looked for inspiration for the song, she remembered feeling 17 to 18 years old when she learned how to love.
Hoàng starred in many Vietnamese films and television series before starting her music career, where she released four albums and numerous singles that became hits in her home country.
In 2007, she was involved in what was known as the “biggest scandal ever in the Vietnamese entertainment industry” after a video was leaked online of her and her boyfriend having sexual intercourse. It halted the drama series she then starred in, prompting her to release a public apology on Vietnamese state television and maintain a low profile for years. She later began her music career in 2001.
The scandal ranked third in the list of Asia’s top 5 celebrity sex scandals by CNN, a list topped by the sex video scandal involving Filipino actress Katrina Halili and celebrity doctor Hayden Kho, Jr.
Yet since everyone deserves a second chance to redeem themselves, Hoàng’s song and the discovery of its origins tracing back to her signify that she’s slowly inching back to brighter days for her career. It also placed Vietnamese pop on a global platform and showed how music could connect people regardless of culture, language, or race.