Just a Whistle

FYI yesterday's post was triggered oddly enough by a sound which I haven't heard since leaving New York, a whistle.

As I was leaving the Bridge Café yesterday afternoon, a bicyclist whistled at me. I haven't heard that sound since shuffling one block from my apartment to the corner bodega one weekend morning. Apparently the messy hair, black yoga pants, faded shrunken t-shirt and Chacos combo is a hot look for me back in Brooklyn. Here not so much. A woman, clad in the sloppiest, baggiest or oddest outfit, can walk down many a street in New York still get the "Hey, baby. You look soooo fine," murmured by a passerby or shouted out of a car window.

While I have seen foreign and local men discreetly give women the once over (usually those with tank tops cut to there and skirts cut to here), I haven't heard a catcall, whistle-type of harassment (or expression of appreciation for the female form, as some of my guy friends call it) in China.

The bicyclist wiggled his eyebrows at me as we passed each other. I had to stop and laugh. While at home, the "hey, baby" type of exchange made me roll my eyes, this whistle reminded me of home.