“La Chinita”

Living in a machista culture poses its challenges especially for American women who aren’t used to being catcalled when walking down the street. It’s a constant, “Tssss…tssss…tssss!!!!” regardless of how conservatively you’re dressed. The fact is, men here call out to women to express admiration even if they don’t know her. Yesterday, I walked from my house to the park (about 10 minutes) and I had the “tssss-ing” happen to be 6 times. This annoys some of the women in our group in other training towns quite a bit and I wanted to know how the men here would like us to respond when they do this. My host family told me that it’s merely an expression of love and no ill will is intended.

Being an Asian in my town definitely has me getting more attention than I’d like. Everywhere I go, I get “La Chinita,” “tsss..tssss!!!,” “te amo,” and marriage proposals. I am one of 3 Asians in Nica 47. One is Filipino and the other is Korean and they get lumped into being Chinese regardless and I can see why it would be annoying for them. Most people here don’t have an understanding that there are various types of Asians.