World Hello Day

What the day is

World Hello Day is observed on November 21. Taking part means greeting ten people, and the premise is that communication between individuals is a precondition for the kind between governments.

Origin and background

The day began in 1973, started by two American brothers, Brian and Michael McCormack, in direct response to the Yom Kippur War that October. Their reasoning was that ordinary people held no lever on international conflict except the practice of talking to one another, and that a deliberately small act repeated widely was better than nothing at all.

The organizers report observance in well over a hundred countries and endorsements from Nobel Peace Prize recipients. Those figures come from the day's own promoters rather than from independent records, though the day has persisted for more than fifty years on almost no institutional support, which is itself notable.

The underlying idea has since acquired experimental backing that did not exist in 1973. Studies that asked commuters to strike up a conversation with a stranger on a train or bus found a consistent and sizeable gap between expectation and outcome. People predicted the experience would be awkward and unwelcome; those who actually did it reported a more pleasant journey than those who sat in silence, and the strangers on the receiving end did not mind. The barrier is not that people dislike being spoken to. It is that both parties wrongly assume the other would rather not be.

That particular mistake scales up uncomfortably well, which is close to the point the McCormacks were making.

How to take part

• Greet ten people, and make them real greetings rather than nods.
• Include at least one person you have seen often and never spoken to.
• Learn how to say hello in a language spoken by someone near you.
• Call the person you have been meaning to call for months.
• Expect it to feel more awkward than it turns out to be. That gap is the whole finding.