Argentina's president made an extremely offensive joke while meeting China's president

Business Insider ^ | 02/04/2015 | SHANE FERRO AND LINETTE LOPEZ

[SeekAndFind]

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is making fun of Chinese accents on Twitter while on official business in the country. In a tweet on Wednesday, first reported by Bloomberg, she wrote about her trip, replacing "r"s with "l"s in the words arroz (rice) and petróleo (petroleum).

Twitter / @CFKArgentina

She then tweeted a non-apology:

Sorry. ¿Sabes qué? Es que es tanto el exceso del ridículo y el absurdo, que sólo se digiere con humor. Sino son muy, pero muy tóxicos. — Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) February 4, 2015

Translation: "Sorry. You know what? It's just that the ridiculousness and absurdity is so high, that it can only be understood through humor. If not, it's very, very toxic."

The problem with this — beyond that it's incredibly insulting to the Chinese — is that it's bad for Argentina's economy.

Fernandez needs China. Badly. Since last year, Fernandez has been working with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a currency swap to get cash to her country and replenish Argentina's notoriously low reserves.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I imagine she’s thinking of Japanese...

Can’t be, she’s making fun of those who can’t pronounce the letter ‘r’.

The Japanese language on the other hand, has no ‘l’ sound.

[KarlInOhio]

The Japanese have a sound that's about half way between L and R which they use for both. But it sounds like an L when they are saying R and an R when they are trying to say L.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers

Although I make the same "rots of ruck" joke, I just imagine what I sound like if I tried some tonal language like Chinese. I can't even get something "simple" like a Spanish trilled R rrrrrright.

[PoloSec]

Don’t worry they are happy... The Chinese will own Argentina soon enough, if are own debt to them is any indication.

[tumblindice]

“Bullclap!” Ministuh of Offensive Alomas, Yu Stin Ki Poo

[SunkenCiv]

:’) I think this is the one that’s relevant, too lazy to check:

http://blip.tv/play/hsJ1gvTlEwI.x?p:1

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/cristinakirchner/index

[Mount Athos]

cantonese doesn’t