A woman has sought media help to apologize to a stranger she cursed for calling her his wife on a street in Wuchang, Hubei Province, on Tuesday.

The woman was talking on her cell phone in the city's Zhongnan Road area when a strange man shouted out to her: "Hey wife, who're you talking to? You'll get a thrashing when we get home."

She got into a fierce argument with the stranger, who quietly walked away from the spot.

Later, the woman was told a thief was trying to steal something from her bag while she was talking on the phone and the man said what he did only to scare away the thief.

(China Daily July 20, 2009)