Free hugs

Australia has promoted the "Free hugs" which is comprised as the name suggests, of hugs from and to citizens. This idea has been welcomed by the European and American countries, being considered a very good opportunity for people to remember or learn, whichever being the case, to express themselves in an open and close manner.

In Xian Chinese city, after the announcement for the "Free hugs" movement was published on Internet, volunteers gathered on the streets and started putting the campaign message into action.
The passing 'victims' hadn't find out about this new concept. Therefore they were shocked, some of them stopped to wonder about what was going on, others rushed away and the majority were appalled that such activities could happen. Even some incidents occurred which needed to be solved by police intervention. The cause of this failure is of course simple: Chinese tradition does not imply hugging. It was imported from foreign cultures and the Chinese people are not used to this form of expression.

Evidently, this campaign would have had success in Romania, for example, where people were accustomed with socializing and expressing their feelings, during many centuries of culture and tradition.
For the countries who have a permissive tradition for this kind of expression, I think the idea is very good because it reminds us that one we do not have to be alone, even if we lead busy lives, we do not have to run everyday back and forth on streets and do not even notice the other people passing by.
They are like us and we all share a small place in each community. We can actually remember how it is like to notice people around us, to smile once in a while and to socialize, without any alterior motives.

All this being said, would you like to take part in such a movement and come up with suggestions related to this idea?

The event was described from "Evenimentul Zilei" newspaper.

Tags: Free Hugs , Free Hugs on YouTube ,
Free Hugs on TEN News Australia

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