Free Hug Goes China

One week ago a korean friend asked me, if I want to join them for a „Free hug“ action at the main shopping street of my city. At the moment I’m living in Shenyang / China. It’s the fifth largest city in China, but only a few foreigners live here and as a european girl you got more attention than you would like.

First I was sceptical because people watching me everyday and a few times they even started to touch me. But then i realized, that it might be a good chance for overcoming my loneliness which overwhelmed me from time to time. So I went with the korean boys to the „Zhong Jie“, the temperature outside was freezing cold, but it was great. I didn’t expected that so many people want to hug me, because sometimes chinese people can be very shy. With each hug, more and more people use their opportunity and made me happy too. An old man gave us a warm soup as a present and it felt like 100 groups of girl running up to me this day. They left our group with a smilie, a photo of me holding my plaque and sometimes really nice words came over their lips, which touched my heart. What a great experience.