Donald Trump’s foul-mouthed immigration outburst made headlines around the world Friday, though the remark was often lost in translation.
Many Asian countries struggled to literally translate the word ‘s***hole’ into their language, or fell back on metaphors for fear of offending their audiences.
Perhaps the most roundabout translation came from the CNA news agency in Taiwan, which said Trump had referred to ‘countries where birds don’t lay eggs’.
Donald Trump fumed about migrants from ‘s***hole countries’ coming to the US on Thursday which immediately made headlines around the world
Many Asian publications struggled to literally translate the remark or were fearful of offending people. Taiwan’s CNA agency said Trump had referred to ‘countries where birds don’t lay eggs’
Japan’s famously polite press largely reported the remark as ‘countries like toilets’, though references were also made to a type of tank used to hold manure.
Local media in Vietnam varied in strength from ‘dirty countries’ to ‘rubbish countries’ to ‘rotten countries’.
In South Korea most papers took their cue from national agency Yonhap, which rendered the remark ‘beggar’s den countries’.
Meanwhile, Voice of America’s Thai service, which is backed by the US, printed an explanation of the word itself in their article on the outburst,
It said that ‘this English word could translate as a “hole of waste from excrement,” which reflects that he considered [them] low-class countries’.
Chinese media were very guarded in their use of the term, with most picking up the story from the overseas version of the People’s Daily, which translated it as ‘languo’, meaning ‘bad countries’.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that Trump had said ‘beggar’s den countries’ while in Japan the remark was rendered ‘countries like toilets’
China’s media was perhaps the most conservative, with most following the lead of the People’s Daily, which reported that Trump had said ‘bad countries’
In the Philippines, whose mainly English-language media have become used to their own president Rodrigo Duterte’s foul-mouthed outbursts, newspapers were nowhere near as coy.
‘Trump: Why allow immigrants from ‘s***hole countries?’ headlined the Philippine Star, without censoring the term.
The President’s remark, which was first reported by the Washington Post and has not been refused by the White House, caused outrage both at home and around the world when it was reported on Thursday.
During talks to strike a bipartisan agreement over immigration negotiators began discussing protections for migrants from countries hit by natural disasters, war or epidemics such as Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries.
‘Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?’ the President fumed, before suggesting he wanted more immigrants from the likes of Norway, whose Prime Minister he met with the day before.
Anderson Cooper, on his nightly CNN broadcast, flatly denounced the remark as ‘racist’ – a sentiment later echoed by a spokesman from the UN, who also called it ‘shocking’ and ‘shameful’.
The Haitian ambassador to the US called on Trump to explain his remark, saying he had formally requested an explanation from officials.