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Q: How to best respond to "hellorassment"
What is the best way to respond to annoying "halloooo" catcalls on the street, generally from groups of young guys? How can the hallower be humiliated most without the foreigner being confrontational or making an ass of himself? I've tried various responses to the derogatory catcalls and I'm not sure what the best way to deal with them is. If it's to my face, I usually just say hi or hello back nonchalantly and if it's to my back I ignore. Sometimes I also ignore if it's to my face and that seems to upset people. I've tried responding in native English expressions like "hey how's it going" that they can't understand and then give a puzzled look when the don't respond. I've tried the condescending "how do you do". I saw some German guys once just laugh at the guy and say "hallooooo" back in a moron voice while laughing at the hallower. That seemed to work pretty well.
So any good stories on how you deal with catcalling wankers? Strategies? Have you gotten into confrontations over this? How can I humiliate the bastards without getting jumped by 5 peasants?
Honestly, the best is to just ignore. Nothing really works. You can put the farmer out of his farm, but you can't put the farm out of the farmer... It's hard sometime to ignore, and any reply might be misunderstood. Showing annoyance and/or reacting can be seen as a "spiritual victory", in a typical Ah Q spirit : "ha ha, I had an impact on the outsider-no-like-one-of-us". Us-and-them mentality, self-full filling prophecy... Of course, I speak about adults, not young kids, and not a gentle "ni hao" you would have with a neighbour
I think you can divide it in 2 categories:
1.) genuinely excited about a chance to say the one foreign word they know
2.) teasing the foreigner, like when you tap the glass of a fish tank.
There's a hellorasser in my neighborhood, it used to bother me. Then I realized he's the guy who sorts the recycling out of the garbage near my building. I get the feeling McDonalds and saying Hello to me are the only multicultural experiences in his life, so I play along. Now I keep my recycling in a separate trash bag and he also says, "Sank You!"
