Last night was very easily one of the most fun, best nights of my entire life! This adding to a weekend that will be possibly one of the best weekends of my entire life burnt into memory and saved here on this blog for eternity.
A few weeks back we (me and a few guys from the dorm) decided, after seeing it often in Shibuya, the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world, that we wanted to take part in the worldwide FREE HUGS campaign that has become so popular in big cities everywhere. So, we made solid plans, one thing led to the next and eventually we ended up setting it up for Halloween night, in costumes, holding FREE HUGS signs in Shibuya, Tokyo where we were certain the event would be well received and at the best time ever.
Well, if I could make an understatement about how successful we were there would be no words left to describe how amazing it was. Because I think no words nor pictures could describe quite simply the most amazing time ever. Ever. None of us kept count, but perhaps by the end of the night we were in hundreds of pictures with people, posing, altogether, etc. And we had each received at least 50 hugs each. We met many new people from the farthest stretches of anywhere and everywhere in the world and been able to not communicate in English or Japanese yet we were still able to communicate everything necessary in a hug.
All of us together. I was Doraemon, a well known character in cartoons for children in Japan. Probably one of the most well known in Japanese pop culture. Lots of cute kids came up wanting to hug only me or Pikachu. Also, there are two other random guys in this picture that joined us.
In the end, this also presented to me a cultural situation which we quickly became aware of. The concept of “hug” does not quite fit into the Japanese culture. In fact there’s not really a way to write in Japanese on a sign “free hugs” and still give the implication that they can freely walk up to you, hug you, and it mean nothing more than love from one stranger to another. Not complex love from one lover to another as the word for hug in Japanese implies here. The word 抱きしめて (pronounced ‘dah-kee-shee-meh-teh’) actually refers to more of an embrace such as one individual might give to someone with whom they are quite close. So in the end, while certain girls stood there staring at us, calling this out at them just made them laugh even more. And many, in the end, just took a picture and went away saying “no hug, just picture” with a cute accent.
On the other hand though, we got hugs in all various forms. People ran out of the depths of crowded walkways just throw themselves into our arms often sending us into a martial-arts-like stance to keep our balance while some came in really close asking in poor English or fast Japanese quietly if they could hug you. To which we replied with big group hugs and yells of “Yeah!” probably scaring them more if we knew any better. Other situations involved small groups of two or three girls who would stand staring for up to thirty minutes before one finally convinced the other to at least get in a picture with us. And still there were many more other people in costume and enjoying the night heading to parties and other events. Despite the fact that Halloween isn’t an especially big holiday in Japan, it certainly is picking up speed with the younger generation and lots of people seem to love it here.
a few cute girls in costume
By the end of the night we had been there for at least four hours, and an hour later than we intended, and yet we found it still so hard to leave but carried our signs proudly through the stations, on the trains, and all the way back home eventually getting a few more hugs and pictures. Everyone’s eyes were burning from flashbulbs as if we had spent an hour staring at the sun. We won’t be surprised to find ourselves in the newspaper or a magazine or two. Or even on the morning news. Now we know what it feels like to be a celebrity in front of the paparazzi Plus I was having camera envy…
Also, I took all of my pictures for the event on my new 35mm FishEye lens camera so at the moment I can’t immediately put those pictures on here but I will promise especially to show the best ones as soon as I get the chance. For now, I have just the pictures some friends took with their digital cameras.
FREE HUGS on the back of my FishEye camera
PS: I just woke up to an amazingly beautiful day and I can see all the way to the mountains! So much potential, so much~!
Writing from Koganei, Tokyo, Japan | November 1, 2008
