Free-Hug Students’ Names

Group Picture

Our group’s final project topic is “Free-Hug & letting Korean people know actual meaning of Free-hug ” Final Project Topic

Meaning Of REAL ‘Free-Hug’ A social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places It means ‘random acts of kindness’ Selfless acts To make others feel better International Free-hug day is first Saturday of July Free-hug was started in 2004 by an Australian man, ‘Juan Mann’ Meaning Of REAL ‘Free-Hug’

Free-hug became famous internationally in 2006, because of the Youtube Video http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=vr3x_RRJ dd4

Why we picked the topic & purpose Since we are all Koreans, we decided to address a topic that all of us were curious about. Currently, the citizens of South Korea do not understand why people “free-hug”. When I went back to Korea last summer and saw these signs & saw how people reacted to these signs negatively and even the people who were holding up these signs seemed embarrassed in contrast to people in America who promote “free hugs” with such passion. We picked “free-hugs” as a topic to teach Koreans the actual forgotten meaning of “free hugs”. Why we picked the topic & purpose

What we did for the project We went to a Korean Student Union event, and a Korean church to offer free hugs to people. While offering free hugs, we also questioned people whom were free-hugged that if they are aware of actual meaning and purpose of free-hugs. Also let them know what we wanted them to know (actual meaning & purpose of free-hug). Student Name was holding up the sign, Student Name was taking pictures, and I, Student Name , free-hugged. This project took about 2 days, performing at different locations for each day, and took about 2 hours per day. What we did for the project

Picture of students doi ng their free hugs project Free-Hug Pictures

While trying to give free-hug on the street, most people that wanted to be free-hugged were people that are not Asian. There was no Asian person who voluntarily came to us to be free-hugged, so we had to ask some random Asian people to be free-hugged. 43 Asians refused and walked away when we asked, and 28 decided to be free-hugged and participate our survey questions. The results

The results (continued) When we asked people whom we were giving free-hugs to that if they know what actual meaning and purpose of free-hug is, 19 out of 28 had no idea, 7 barely had some idea about purpose of giving free-hugs, and 2 people knew more than the rest, but still was not that clear. As result shows, only two people had some kind of idea of what for and why people free-hug, which also means that none of the people whom we free-hugged had clear idea of actual meaning and purpose of free-hug. The results (continued)

The results (continued) Some people that we free-hugged and participated our survey questions, had wrong and negative point of view about free-hug on the street, such as.. People free-hug so guys can hug girls and girls can hug guys Why would I hug or be hugged by people I don’t even know? That’s kind of awkward. When girls are holding up the “free-hug” sign, that look inappropriate. The results (continued)

As we thought and expected so, we ended up with the result of that none of the people we free-hugged was aware of the actual meaning and purpose of free-hug, and some people even had wrong and negative thoughts about the free-hug. After finishing up our project, we felt both miserable and satisfied from the result we got. (continued on next page..) Our Thoughts

Our Thoughts (continued) When result came out as we expected, or even worse than we expected, we felt so miserable and ashamed about how Free-hug is not being accepted or being accepted negatively by people from Asia. However, we were still satisfied with our project itself, because if the result did not came out as we expected and all Asian people knew why actually people free, our project would have been meaningless and pointless. We were happy about our choice of the project and glad that we at least could let 28 Asians know the actual meaning and purpose of the Free-Hug. Our Thoughts (continued)

Thank You