The Human Touch

Have you ever heard of the experiment where they raised a kid without ever letting another human being touch them?

Now, listen, I don't know if this is something that's true, I guess I could get on the internet and look it up or something. But it seems like I remember hearing about some experiment somebody did sometime where they took these kids who were orphaned, and "in the interest of science" tried to raise them without ever letting another human touch them. I mean, they HAD to "touch" them, obviously, to feed them and all that, but (as the story goes) they always wore gloves and stuff, they never let human flesh contact them. 

(Actually, now I'm thinking about it, I think they were supposed to have kept them in these boxes, and the only human contact they had was through the gloved arm-holes in the boxes -- the doctors adopted this system so it would preempt any "accidental" hugs from the nurses, or whatever).

Well, whatever...  it may be totally bogus, or from some stupid movie, I don't know. It certainly sounds like something the Nazi's would do or something, right? Too cruel to have actually happened, I mean...

But anyway, the "result" of the experiment, as I seem to "remember" it (again, I don't know that I'm not somehow making this all up, I'm just not sure), but as I say, the "result" was that the kids who hadn't been held didn't grow and thrive the way they were supposed to. It's like, they were perfectly healthy in every regard, but their development was stunted "for no apparent reason." Of course, the conclusion was that it was the lack of being touched and held that adversely affected these kids' emotional growth and growth potential. 

Right. Well, I totally believe that. 

Now look, I don't think of myself as a real "touchy" kind of guy. I mean, I just don't go into a bunch of sloppy hugging and stuff -- it ain't manly, okay?!? But of course I hug my folks, "me mum and dad" as the Brits would say; and because I grew up in my church at home, I used to get lots of "C'mere, big guy!" hugs from ladies there. And then there are Audrey and Lauren, the daughters of my friends Bobby and Denise -- I used to get hugs from them all the time! In fact, for a "not-real-touchy" guy, I realize (now) that I got hugged all the time when I lived in the States.  I guess I got used to it, and took it for granted to a certain extent, too...

But listen -- in Hong Kong, no one touches me.

Well, that's not entirely true. Our students love to rush up to me and grab my arm; or some of them think shaking my hand is the funniest thing they've ever done. This one kid who can't speak any English whatsoever (I say that with shame -- I'm his stinkin' English teacher, for goodness' sake!) -- but anyway, I taught him the old three-part, soul-brother handshake. You know, the one where you start out with the standard "nice to meet you" grip, then slide into a soul-brother grab of the thumb/wrist, then into the "G.I. Joe Kung Fu grip" hold, then you point out your index finger like a gun and "shoot" the other guy a nice cold "Whassup?" Yeah, well, so this kid always wants to do the soul-brother thing, it's our own little secret handshake, I guess -- he waits until there are other students around so he can do it in front of them. It's funny because when actually in the act of hand-shaking, his face is frowning, he's all business (he doesn't want to mess it up!); but as soon as he's done it -- "shot" me a cool "whassup?" with his "gun" -- he turns to the other kids and with a relaxed smile he'll walk away, as if to say, "Yo, I'm in!!"

So there's that, the "shaking-hands-with-students" thing...

Oh, and on my birthday one of the other teachers gave me a hug. She is one of my closest friends in Hong Kong and I knew she was just trying to be nice and all, so it was one of those "can we hug without actually touching?" things... (Yes, we did -- hug without actually touching, I mean).

But apart from all that, no one in Hong Kong touches me.

Ever...

So, you know how you're never as lonely as when you're alone in a crowd? Well, there's something about "being alone in a huge, bustling city" that starts to tear at your heart somehow... I'm not sure how to put it, but when no one touches you, it's easy to start feeling disconnected from people. What's weird is that it can happen even when they're in your face 24-7 -- even when you know there are friends around you that care for you deeply. Maybe for me it's the fact that I can't understand their language that plays a part, too. Actually I'm sure that's part of it. But it's like somehow, if you're not careful, you lose that sense that you are really going "with" them, and instead you start to feel like you're standing still while you're watching everyone else go spinning by in front of you. It can make the most well-adjusted person feel like a big, monstrous alien -- isolated and alone with a big square head in a world full of people with round heads. Or something like that.

But sometimes, even in a lonely city of 7 million people, something can happen to remind you that you're part of the human family...

. . .

Back in December I was taking a bus from Causeway Bay (on HK Island) back to Tin Shui Wai, where I live. It's a really long, grueling bus ride of almost 90 minutes (on a busy night), and it's so crowded and cramped that you just can't help but be uncomfortable and hate it.

It was about midnight, and on this particular Saturday night I found myself sitting just behind the driver, in the cross-facing seats. What I mean is, on lots of busses in HK right behind the front-door/driver area there is a row of seats, maybe 4 or 5 on each side, that do NOT face forward like normal, but are lined up with their backs to the wall, so you are facing ACROSS the bus, if that makes sense. So I was in the first seat just behind the driver facing across the bus to the other side. I hate sitting there because it's such a long ride, and facing that way always threatens to make me car-sick -- but I was just glad to have a seat!

Anyway, there was a girl sitting next to me, on my left. It's always hard for me to tell with HK girls, but I would guess she was in her late twenties, maybe mid-thirties at the latest. To be honest, I never really looked at her face, I just got an "impression" of her from the corner of my eye, if you catch my drift. She had one big bag of shopping with her, and of course her first order of business upon sitting down was to make about 10 phone calls on her mobile phone (like any busy HK Person would do). She had the vibe of someone with lots to do and no time to do it -- I could tell she was totally "together," but she sighed and spoke on the phone like she just needed a long rest, too.

Well, after the bus was full and had started it's trek from HK Island across to the New Territories (the longest part of the trip, where there are no stops -- about a 20-30 minute stretch), she put away her phone and settled down for the rest of the ride. Up to this point I really hadn't thought much about her except that her bag of shopping was sticking me in the shin, so I was mildly bugged at that. But after about 7 or 8 minutes, I noticed (out of the corner of my eye) that she was nodding off to sleep. 

(Now, you've got to understand that this is normal business for people in Hong Kong -- if they spend 3 hours a day commuting back and forth to work they use that time to make phone calls, yes, or to read, yes; but MORE importantly they use that time to catch up on sleep).

So this girl started to nod off, and I thought with a silent chuckle how she didn't seem so "posh" just then, with her head bobbing back and forth fighting sleep... and it was while dwelling briefly on this thought I started to feel pretty darn sleepy myself...

But then something really magical happened, or at least it felt that way to me. 

As she slowly gave in to sleep, her head started to lean, ever so slowly, towards my shoulder. I mean to say, her head was moving so slowly, it was barely perceptible... it's like her head just sort of, I don't know, "wilted" over towards me -- but at the speed of molasses...

At first, as I was slightly roused back towards consciousness, I thought, "Oh, no, this is going to be awkward"... (I'm always afraid of things like this happening where I won't know how to react in the culturally-correct way). But I guess I was pretty tired myself, because I remember thinking, "Oh, geez... Who cares?!?" 

In fact -- and listen, I don't know what came over me here -- I found myself, through the haze of near-sleep, just starting to pray, "Okay, God, please let this girl put her head on my shoulder." 

And sure enough, in a moment's time she gently -- so gently! -- laid her head on my shoulder, and continued to sleep...

She lay there like that for maybe 3 or 4 minutes, at least, and I could feel how deeply she was sleeping -- she was gone, man. And I know it sounds totally nuts, but I imagined that God Himself had given me that moment. For so long I had just felt totally "untouchable" in HK; and here, in this totally innocent, and tender -- and HUMAN -- moment, I finally felt, I don't know, somehow... Well, I felt "connected" -- you know?!?

I remember thinking in those last few moments before I dozed off, with her head lying heavy on my shoulder, "Thanks, Father, for giving me this girl to sit here next to me and go to sleep." And I remember thinking that I hoped He would bless her the way He had used her to bless me.

And with that I was off to sleep myself...

. . . 

You know, most of the students at our school see me as a monster. They really do. They see me as a huge, frightening monster who is liable, at any moment, to lash out and rip their head off. 

Now, they don't really believe I'll do that -- they know I'm too much about "fun" to do that -- but they believe it's possible. And so they have this strange Love-Fear thing with me. I'm the grown-up who acts like them... I'm the grown-up who laughs and smiles and doesn't act like a real teacher at all. And they LOVE that, but it scares them just a little, too -- they know me just enough to NOT know what I'll do next...

So to the kids I'm the big, funny-but-scary monster. But all too often I sense a lot of the adults around me think of me in the same way -- they're not quite sure how to handle me, and so they keep their distance. And I can FEEL it, too, sometimes -- that cold distance between us... 

Maybe that's why having this girl fall to sleep on my shoulder meant so much to me. I don't know... 

It wasn't because she was "cute" or anything like that -- geez, I have no idea what she really looked like! Even later, when we'd both awakened again and she got off the bus, I chose to not look at her at all. It took a load of will-power, mind you! But I didn't want to "spoil" it, if that makes sense. I somehow wanted her to remain "faceless" -- as if that would somehow keep the whole thing more "pure" or something... Well, so it wasn't about that kind of thing, trust me...

It was just that, I don't know... Here we were, two total strangers, from completely different worlds -- we didn't even speak the same language -- but for those few moments, at least, I was her shoulder to lean on. I know that sounds dopey, but that was it. She would NEVER have chosen to fall asleep on my shoulder (I've often wondered what went through her mind when she finally woke up and realized she had been leaning on some guy's shoulder)! 

But for those few moments it didn't matter to her if I was a monster or not. 

And for a monster whom no one touches, that really meant a LOT...

This article was first posted: 17 March 2002

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