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US woos Japan with Mexican love song

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who first came to Vietnam as a soldier and returned this week as a diplomat, found himself in yet another role on Thursday, as a gun-toting cowboy entranced by Japan's foreign minister.

After a week of high-level talks in Hanoi on global security, Powell donned a red bandana at the gala dinner and -- with senior State Department officials providing backing vocals and guitar -- crooned a tragic song about a doomed, lovesick cowboy.

But in Powell's version of El Paso, one of his favorite songs when he fought in Vietnam more than three decades ago, the cowboy was in love, not with a Mexican girl but with "a Vietnamese maiden" -- played by Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.

"Blacker than night were the eyes of Makiko, wicked and evil while casting her spell," sang Powell. "My love was deep for this Vietnamese maiden. I was in love, but in vain, I could tell."

The song tells the tale of a cowboy who kills a love rival in a Texas cantina and flees town. He returns for another glimpse of his beloved, and is promptly shot dead by a posse of vigilantes.

As Powell acted out his death throes at the end of the song, Tanaka -- in traditional Vietnamese dress -- flung her arms around his prostrate body and kissed him on the cheek.

The audience -- according to a State Department official at the dinner -- "just went wild."

Cabaret performances by foreign ministers have become a ritual at the end of the annual regional security meeting of ASEAN and their global dialog partners, which include the US, Japan, China, the EU and Russia.

This year's acts included a Beach Boys cover by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, complete with surfboard, an ASEAN version of Hotel California by the Indian delegation, and a song by Thailand's foreign minister accompanied by his counterpart from military-ruled Myanmar on an electric keyboard.

The Russian delegation staged an elaborate show with Czarist-era costumes and a version of Yellow Submarine.
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