FREE HUGS IN MOBGROG

On my way to work a couple of weeks ago I'd been astonished to see a pair of attractive young Asian women standing beside a wide rush hour sidewalk outside of Osaka's busy Umeda Station, holding handwritten signs that said: "Free Hugs!" (in English!) I remembered reading about a 'Juan Mann' in Sydney, who had been offering Free Hugs to passersby, but that was a guy. In Australia. These were women. In Japan.

I doubted if very many Japanese had heard of the hugger guy, let alone really understood the Free Hug action (and the English sign) for what it was in the Western sense, because Japanese only touch strangers (other than illicitly) in random rush-hour commuter collisions. I remember thinking these young ladies were going to have few takers here. A hug in Japan is not the same as a hug in Australia.

The Japanese don't hug, they bow. I've hugged my own kids of course, so they're used to hugging, but never my in-laws (does anyone?) or in-law relations. I can't imagine ever hugging any of my Japanese acquaintances; they would be shocked! So I figured maybe those two women were inspired by the Free Hugs guy, but would soon give up when they had stood for days without a request for a hug. I couldn't picture any of these workaday commuters, in their hurries to and from the office, going up to the women in public, right there for everyone to see, and asking for a hug; that was admitting an emotional need of some sort, and whoever did it would be the focus of all eyes, maybe even get photographed...

This morning, still groggy from the long Golden Week vacation luxury of freely doing whatever I want around the house and environs at my own pace, and the same each day for days on end, without having to readjust my crowd/time/noise/space psychoparameters in preparation for trips into the big city, it was therefore in a state of mobgrog that I was amazed to again behold the Free Hugs women standing with their Free Hug signs. Had they managed to hug somebody in public? Neither one was hugging anybody at the moment, but one of them was speaking at length to a guy who was at least enjoying a spontaneous chat with an attractive woman stranger right there on the street, which in Japan can be as good as a hug in Sydney.

The Japanese are still not even comfortable shaking hands. They do so perforce with foreigners, but rarely with each other. So I still can't imagine staid Japanese businessmen requesting a free hug from these women (even married couples don't hug in public!). But these two dauntless young women at least augur nice changes, however many hugs they manage to give out. Whether passersby get a free hug or not, they're at least starting to think about "hugs" and hugging and all that that might mean, however culturally different it is.

Another emotionseed closer to the eden of really caring for one another.