With this series of blog posts I actually will require you to respond and weigh in with your opinion. I plan to present personal experiences. I really want to know how you would have responded or what you would have done differently. These posts are not for any specific nationality. I want everyone’s opionion and feedback.

Ok. So maybe you have read about my experience at the welcome event where a lady reached out to try and touch my locs, mid sentence. My intial response was to evade. I moved away from her hand each time she tried to touch it. It all happened so fast that I don’t remember how many times I moved but I would guess it was at least twice in the span of a few seconds. Perhaps she thought it was a fun game of cat and mouse. I don’t know.

I’d like to think that I was nice about it and asked her to please not touch me but I honestly can’t recall. I think in this case, I’d only been in Japan for a few weeks and was admittedly very sensitive to the differences between American and Japanese cultures. However, this has happened many times and my response remains unchanged. Coupled with all the stares, being touched without permission just crosses my line.

What would you have done? How often does this happen to you? Are you comfortable with strangers touching you? Do you touch strangers?