Last week, conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh complained on his radio show about the lack of live translation for Chinese President Hu Jintao‘s final speech. While this sounds innocent enough, perhaps we’ve come to expect more from Limbaugh, who has a history of provocation. The caveat: he offered his own twisted imitation of Hu’s speech, and many “chings” and “chongs” were heard.

Since then, reactions to Limbaugh’s speech have been lively. From 8Asians:

People still do…the whole “ching chong chang” type noises that you would expect from Mickey Rooney’s role as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s[?] What’s amusing to me here is that while I actually listen to Rush every so often, this doesn’t really help matters if he is the voice of conservative radio. Most conservative business people actually have a lot of respect for China’s manufacturing play. I would, too, when it puts more money in my pocket so I doubt that Rush’s imitation is going to go over well with conservatives, as well as liberals in this case.

Several prominent Asian-Americans, including New York Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing), have severely criticized Limbaugh. From the NY Observer:

“Not since Jerry Lewis impersonations of Chinese as buck-toothed and squinty-eyed has a public figure been so insulting to Asian-Americans and a visiting world leader. At least the Jerry Lewis offense has the very slight benefit of being popular over a generation ago. Rush Limbaugh should be ashamed of himself, but the real tragedy of this is that he’ll likely feel no remorse. His advertisers and sponsors should be worried about impact to their reputation and brands. I personally suffered ridicule like this as a child, and had hoped we were past this for the sake of all our children. Sadly, that’s not the case.”

Now Stephen Colbert has lashed out bitingly against Limbaugh, being deeply offended by the conservative pundit’s “cheap knock-off” impression. What’s more, he is sensitive enough to provide a translation for Limbaugh’s Chinese! See video below:

[via 8Asians]

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