The man in front of me has fear in his eyes. It is the evening rush hour in London and I am standing in the middle of 1）Carnaby Street holding aloft a 2）placard that reads： “Free Hugs”. My mission is simply to reach out to strangers， clasp them close and make them feel better about their day—3）no strings attached. But this man isnt convinced. “What are you selling？” he asks.“Nothing，” I explain. “Were just offering hugs to people. For free.”

我面前的那個男人目露恐懼。那是倫敦傍晚的上下班高峰期，我高舉寫著“自由擁抱”的標(biāo)語牌，站在卡爾納比街中央。我的目的很簡單，那就是向陌生人張開雙臂，緊緊抱住他們，讓他們心情更好——不求任何回報。但是，這個男人并不相信?！澳阍谫u什么？”他問。“不賣什么，”我解釋道?！拔覀冎皇墙o人們提供擁抱。免費的?！?img src="https://cimg.fx361.com/images/2018/07/08/qkimagesfkyyfkyy201308fkyy20130812-1-l.jpg"/>

The man slips his iPhone out of his jacket pocket and takes a photo， as if he cannot quite believe what he is seeing. I open my arms in what I hope is a welcoming， earth-motherly fashion. I remember what Ive been told in the pre-hugs briefing by the group co-ordinator： smile， but not so much that you look psychotic， and dont take offence if someone doesnt want to hug you back. I wait. The man looks uneasy， a bit embarrassed and then， unexpectedly， his face breaks into a smile.

He hugs me. And although Ive been secretly 4）dreading the moment when Ill have to engage in a surprisingly intimate act with a stranger who might have all manner of personal 5）hygiene problems， I discover that its a nice feeling. We hold each other for a moment， then release. We exchange smiles and I watch as he makes his way back down the street.

The story of how I got to be here， pressing flesh with random pedestrians， is an 6）intriguing one.

In June 2004， an Australian who went by the 7）pseudonym Juan Mann started giving out free hugs in his local shopping mall. Mann had reached a point of personal crisis in his own life： his parents had divorced and his fiancée had broken off their engagement. He realised that people were living increasingly disconnected lives. The need for human contact had been neglected. In Manns eyes， we were living in a computer-mediated culture where friends were made through MySpace and families were breaking down. Where previously small-scale local communities had been integral to individual wellbeing， now people were pursuing 8）far-flung separate lives in different corners of the globe.

那男人從他的夾克口袋里掏出蘋果手機(jī)，拍了張照，好像不太能相信他眼前所見。我張開了雙臂，以一種自己希望是熱情的，猶如大地之母般慈愛的方式。我記得活動簡介會上，團(tuán)隊協(xié)調(diào)員簡要地提醒過：微笑，但別太過，以免讓自己看上去像神經(jīng)病，如果別人不想還你一抱，也別動怒。我等待著。那男人看起來不大自在，有一點尷尬，接著，出乎意料地，他的臉上綻開了笑容。

他擁抱了我。雖然我一直暗地里擔(dān)心這時刻，因為得和各色各樣或許有衛(wèi)生問題的陌生人進(jìn)行意外親密的接觸，但是我發(fā)現(xiàn)那感覺很棒。好一會兒，我們擁抱著彼此，然后放開。我們相視而笑，而后我看著他走回街上。

我是如何開始在這兒與來往的行人擁抱的？這是個挺有意思的故事。

2004年6月，一位化名胡安·曼恩的澳洲男子開始在他當(dāng)?shù)氐馁徫镏行墨I(xiàn)出自由擁抱。曼恩自己的生活曾一度遭遇個人危機(jī)：父母離異，未婚妻也解除了他們的婚約。他意識到人們正過著越來越疏離的生活。人際交往的需要已經(jīng)被忽略。在曼恩看來，人們處在一種電腦操控的文化之中，在這種文化中，我們通過聚友網(wǎng)交朋友，家庭則支離破碎。以前，個人福祉離不開小型的本地社群，而如今人們追求的是在地球上的不同角落、天各一方的獨居生活。

Mann hand-wrote a sign advertising Free Hugs and went to the 9）Pitt Street Mall in central Sydney， where he stood for 15 long， lonely minutes before an elderly lady took pity on him. Her dog had just died， she confessed， and the hug had made her feel better. Soon Juan Mann was handing out hugs every few seconds. As the days passed， more volunteers with their own handwritten signs came and stood alongside him. Shimon Moore was one of them.

“I had a job holding a sign advertising a sale on shoes，” Moore says， speaking to me from his home in Los Angeles. “I saw this guy offering free hugs one day. I thought it was a great idea， so I started talking to him.” Moore wrote songs in his spare time and was the lead singer for a band called Sick Puppies. The band was looking for a record deal， so Moore took his fathers video camera to the mall and started to film Juan Mann with the idea of making a music video. Free Hugs had started taking off： every day， hundreds of shoppers would stop to be hugged by the 10）anonymous man with the home-made placard. By October the police had 11）got wind of it and threatened to ban the movement. Ten thousand people signed a petition. The police 12）backed down.

曼恩手制了一個標(biāo)示牌宣傳“自由擁抱”，而后去了位于悉尼市中心的皮特街購物中心，在那兒孤零零地站了長達(dá)15分鐘之后，才有一位上了年紀(jì)的女士可憐他，給了他一個擁抱。她直言不諱地說道，她的狗剛剛離世，這個擁抱讓她感覺好多了。不一會兒，曼恩每隔幾秒就給予路人一個擁抱。隨著日子一天天過去，越來越多的志愿者帶著他們自己手寫的標(biāo)示牌趕來并加入曼恩的行列。西蒙·莫爾便是其中之一。

“我曾經(jīng)有份工作就是舉廣告牌為鞋子作銷售宣傳，”莫爾在其洛杉磯的家里對我說道?！坝幸惶煳铱吹竭@個家伙提供自由擁抱。我覺得那是個很棒的主意，于是我就和他聊了起來?！蹦獱栭e暇的時候會寫歌，而且他是樂隊“生病狗狗”的主唱。當(dāng)時這支樂隊正在尋求一張唱片合約，所以莫爾就帶著他父親的攝影機(jī)去了那家購物中心，并開始為胡安·曼恩拍攝，想就此制作一個音樂視頻?！白杂蓳肀А被顒又饾u聲名四起：每天，數(shù)以百計的購物者會停下腳步和這個拿著自制標(biāo)語牌的無名男子擁抱。到了10月，警方聽聞此事，揚言要禁止這個活動。萬人簽名請愿表示支持曼恩，于是警方作出讓步。

Moore filmed it all. When he and his band， Sick Puppies， moved to Los Angeles in March 2005 in search of a record deal， he edited the footage， set it to music and sent it back to Mann in Sydney as a present. Mann posted the video on YouTube and it went viral， attracting 70，000，000 views. The YouTube video made Juan Mann into something of a celebrity and his campaign attracted global media coverage. By 2006 he was being interviewed by 13）Oprah Winfrey and Free Hugs was going international： branches sprang up in Taiwan， Israel， Italy， America， Switzerland，Norway， India， Portugal and the UK. Moore and his band got a record deal. They started selling Free Hugs merchandise at their gigs—T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with Juan Manns distinctive handwriting. Mann wrote a book—The Illustrated Guide to Free Hugs—became an after-dinner speaker and published his address and mobile-phone number online， offering to go for a meal with anyone who contacted him. For a while， everything was good.

But then it all went quiet. When I attempt to get in touch with Juan Mann， he seems to have disappeared. Eventually I track down a brief interview Mann gave to a New York business news website in 2010 in which he claimed Shimon Moore had screwed him over financially by getting him to sign up with the same management company that represented Sick Puppies.

“I complied， believing that Shimon， as my friend， would make certain that we were both amply compensated for the video and the Free Hugs merchandise the band sells，” Mann said. But according to Mann， that didnt happen： he claimed all the earnings went straight to Moore and his band members.

莫爾把這些都拍了下來。為了能拿到唱片合約，2005年3月，莫爾和他的 “生病狗狗”樂隊去了洛杉磯，他剪輯了視頻，配好音樂并把它作為禮物寄回給身在悉尼的曼恩。曼恩把視頻放到了YouTube上，隨即在網(wǎng)上迅速散播，引來7000萬的點擊率。這段視頻讓胡安·曼恩成了名人，他的自由擁抱運動吸引了全球媒體的競相報道。2006年，他接受了奧普拉·溫弗瑞的采訪，“自由擁抱”運動也走向世界：在中國臺灣、以色列、意大利、美國、瑞士、挪威、印度、葡萄牙以及英國，自由擁抱運動的分支如雨后春筍般涌現(xiàn)。莫爾和他的樂隊拿到了唱片合約。他們開始在演奏會上販賣自由擁抱運動的商品——印有胡安·曼恩特制簽名的T恤和馬克杯。曼恩寫了一本書——《自由擁抱圖解指南》——他成了人們茶余飯后的談資，他還把地址和手機(jī)號碼發(fā)到了網(wǎng)上，邀請與他聯(lián)系的任何人一同吃飯。那段時間，一切都很好。

但此后一切歸于平靜。當(dāng)我試圖聯(lián)系胡安·曼恩時，他似乎從人間蒸發(fā)了。最終，我在一個紐約商業(yè)新聞網(wǎng)上找到了曼恩在2010年接受的一段簡短采訪，采訪中他聲稱西蒙·莫爾讓他與“生病狗狗”樂隊的經(jīng)紀(jì)公司簽約，西蒙在金錢上欺騙了他。

“我答應(yīng)了，因為作為朋友，我信任西蒙，一定會就視頻和樂隊出售的‘自由擁抱主題商品與我分享銷售所得，”曼恩說道。按照曼恩的說法，那并未發(fā)生：曼恩稱，所有的盈利都進(jìn)了摩爾和“生病狗狗”樂隊成員的腰包。

When I speak to Moore， he is clearly uncomfortable. “Thats a 14）touchy subject，” he says over the phone. “I havent commented before because I dont want to fuck up the brand. The truth is， we had a falling-out over money…it messed up our friendship.”

Moore seems genuinely distressed about the falling-out. He loved Free Hugs.

“ It was Juans thing： he made it， he started it.” He sighs. “But the beautiful thing now is that its so much bigger than any one person.” He sounds as if he is trying to persuade himself. And yet it is true that the concept of Free Hugs has been extremely influential. People still stand on busy streets holding placards in much the same way as Juan Mann did all those years ago.

For years we worshipped at the 15）altar of conspicuous consumption in an age when fame was accorded for marrying a footballer or appearing on reality television， and when friendships were made and lost at the click of a computer mouse. These days we take more delight in the everyday kindnesses， in the shared experience.

Back on Carnaby Street， my efforts to mix my emotions with complete strangers are gathering pace. As Im standing there， handing out hugs to people Ive never met before and will probably never meet again， it strikes me that theres an obvious irony in the fact that a movement predicated on free gestures of intimacy should have been 16）riven by in-fighting about money between the two men who made it happen. But maybe it doesnt matter. Like most of the best ideas， Free Hugs has gathered its own momentum. After all， it was always meant to be bigger than just Juan Mann.

我向摩爾談及此事，他明顯不大自然?！斑@是個敏感的話題，”他在電話中說道?！爸拔覜]有就此事發(fā)表言論，是因為我不想搞砸招牌。事實是，我們因為錢鬧掰了……金錢搞砸了我們的友誼?！?/p>

對于和胡安的決裂，摩爾看起來真的很痛苦。他熱愛“自由擁抱”運動。

“‘自由擁抱運動是胡安的東西：他是創(chuàng)始人、發(fā)起者。”他嘆了口氣。“但現(xiàn)在美妙的是它聲勢越來越浩大，已不再局限于任何個人。”他的話聽起來像是在試著說服自己。然而這是事實：自由擁抱的概念已經(jīng)極具影響力。如同多年前胡安·曼恩那樣，人們?nèi)耘f舉著標(biāo)語牌，站在人來人往的街道上。

多年來我們對斗富擺闊頂禮膜拜，在這個時代，人們靠嫁給足球運動員或上真人秀電視節(jié)目來博得聲名，人們敲一下電腦鼠標(biāo)，就能得到或失去友誼。這些日子以來，我們從每日的善舉和經(jīng)驗分享中，獲得了更多快樂。

回到卡爾納比街，我加倍努力將自己的情感與陌生人融合。當(dāng)我站在這里，擁抱與我素不相識，而且可能再也不會遇見的人，我突然覺得事實很諷刺：這項建基于免費親密善舉的運動竟然會因為兩位創(chuàng)始人之間的金錢糾紛而分崩離析。但也許這并不打緊。如同很多好點子一樣，“自由擁抱”運動勢頭正健。畢竟，本就該有更多人參與，而不僅僅限于胡安·曼恩。