Things that are rare are always appreciated more than the mundane. For instance, women seem to prefer diamonds over wallpaper, and men usually get more excited over Ferraris than caulking guns.

But when a seemingly commonplace item is taken to a country where such things are considered rare, it can lead to intercultural exchanges, and maybe even uncomfortable experiences.

Take conspicuous male body hair in Japan--or the lack of it.

As an American, I never really took notice of my conspicuous body hair (i.e., on my arms, legs, and chest). The only exceptions being when my hairless-chested brothers' toddlers would play with my chest hair because it was something new to their experience, or perhaps during the summer when my forearm hair would turn white from the sun. I mean, really, by American standards, I was a bit above average in the hair department, but certainly no gorilla.

But in Japan, though hairy legs aren't uncommon for either sex, furry forearms or fuzzy chests are few and far between. If you couple that rarity with the added factor of light brown or sun-whitened hairs, the uniqueness of it all can spark the curiosity of both the young and old. And can lead to many different reactions.

I'll never forget the time I was shopping in a large grocery store in famous Mito City in 1985. I had never shopped there before, so I was taking my time looking around. At the end of one aisle, two ladies in their late forties were serving portions of potstickers, so I moseyed on over. It was free, and I was hungry. Discovering I spoke Japanese, they began complimenting me on my blondish hair, and more especially my blonde forearm hairs. One of them then asked if she could touch my arm. I gave a hesitant yes, and she reached out her small hand and gave it a quick swipe.

"Oh, you've got to try this!" she gushed to her co-worker, "It feels so soft!" As her friend reached over to feel for herself, I felt my face getting red.

"Oh, it's true!"

I downed my potsticker and was trying to mosey away when the first lady asked if all my body hair was blondish. She tried to help me understand the scope of her inquiry by patting the various presumably hairy parts of her own body and asking, "How about here?" and, half-leering "How about here?"

"Good question," I replied. "What do you think?" and made a quick exit before she could tell me what she truly thought.

Looking back, I realize I should have suavely parried the question, asking the, um, lady, in return, "Well, just what color is your chest hair?" but I'm not the fastest thinker on my feet, my best retorts usually coming to me about ten minutes after they are no longer usable.

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Then in 1990 I went to Nango, where unlike big Mito City, most of the people had never actually seen or met a foreigner up close and personal, and especially not a blondish one. And that was especially true of the kids, and the better they knew me, the more interesting my furry forearms became to them.

My first experiences were at the preschools. Preschool children have no inhibitions, even when confronted with a hulking American, and once one of their teeming number would discover my "different" arms, they would all surround me trying to get a feel for themselves.

At Katagami Preschool, precocious little Ayumi petted my arms, and pronounced it "Moja-moja!" an onomatopoeic word that describes the feel of something shaggy, like a deep-plush rug or furry animals. I lightly brushed the top of her head with my hand and grinningly replied back, "You're moja-moja too!" She was puzzled for a second, since "moja-moja" isn't used for head hair, but then she got my poor attempt at a joke.

This is about the time I started signing letters, "From Louis, AKA 'The Walking Petting Zoo.'"

Then in 1991 I started going to the Nango Little League practices. There were seven 3rd graders on the team, and having nothing better to do for much of the practice, all seven of them would surround me on the bench and, between machine-gunned questions about every facet of me and America, enthusiastically pet my arm hair. They said it was really cool!

I really didn't mind kids petting it--it made for simple but good intercultural exchange. They would pet my arms (and sometimes my legs when I wore shorts), and then I would make a big show of trying pet their armhair, then stop, look puzzled, and query as to where their hair had disappeared to. Yes, kids were fine, but for some reason, I tried to draw the line at adults--especially coarse female adults--and was moderately successful.

(However, I will admit that at a baseball team party I let some of the half-tipsy baseball kids' moms give them a "quickie," after their drinking led them to confesse to a long-suppressed desire to do so. From the squeals of delight (their squeals, not mine) I could tell that the experience was better than they had even fantasized.)

But soon petting it wasn't enough for some of the kids, and some would try to pull out souvenirs to "remember me by." It was a very sweet thing to say, and at times such touching gestures almost brought tears to my eyes. A little whelp trying to yank out a fistful of arm hairs would bring tears to most anyone.

Being resourceful, I soon able to put a stop to most of the pulling. I learned that pricing my arm hair at 100 yen ($1) per strand--"Pay before you pull, please"--or threatening 100 yen's worth of pain for each hair pulled out by a moneyless kid, significantly reduced their depilatory depredations.

Asked "Why?" by the would-be thieves, I would flatly state, "1. Because it hurts; and 2. Because they're golden, and gold is expensive, so pay up."

Intelligent kids that they were, they logically asked how much I would sell my head and leg hair go for, perhaps hoping it would be cheaper. I hadn't thought it out that far, but I quickly arrived at the price of 50 yen per leg hair since I had lots, and a high price of 1000 yen per head hair, since it was getting scarce enough without having kids pulling more of it out.

This stratagem worked like a charm, besides giving the kids a quick lesson in supply and demand.

The word quickly spread on the playgrounds. By the time I left town, probably 99% of all the elementary-aged kids knew the going price for my body hair, as well as my other vital statistics: age, weight, height, and shoe size!

And after a while, I even relented a teeny-weeny bit on my hard-line high-priced stance.

After spending a couple months with the Nango Little League team and having been treated so well by their organization, I graciously extended to all team members a full ten-percent discount on my arm hair. Sure, it was a purely empty gesture on my part, but it did make the kids feel special.

Thereafter, when I went to their school and the subject of pricing came up--as it invariably did when talking casually with kids--the baseball kids would be sure to boast to their friends that they could get a piece for only 90 yen! Not that any of them, or anyone else for that matter, was ever desperate enough to buy one during my years there; my signature was usually more than enough.

But, on occasion, I was forced to give out a 100 yen's worth of pain to kids who "pulled" sneak attacks on my arms and tried to run away with their ill-gotten gains. The word soon got around the playground grapevine that ol' Furoido-san was a lot faster than his bulk would seem to indicate, and he gave pretty hard dutch rubs!

The last of the big arm-petters was Daichi, a four-year-old boy at Meitsu Preschool. I visited the preschool weekly, and all the kids there had indulged themselves in the now almost-automatic gesture to a greater or lesser degree, but Daichi took petting to new heights.

Daichi was able to do it even unconsciously.

As we would sit down on the hard wood floors to watch my Bugs Bunny videos (I had eight hours worth!), Daichi was almost always the first to dive in and stake out a claim on my lap. The other kids would jump his claim within five seconds, and after a quick pushing and shoving match, he would end up having to be satisfied with sitting on a single leg, giving up the other leg to some of the other kids.

Then, while completely engrossed in Bug's adventures at the bullfight, Daichi would simultaneously--and unconsciously--run his hand or hands up and down my luxuriantly plush forearm. He would continue this, eyes glued to the TV, until my legs started going numb from the half-dozen kids on or around them, which was my cue to throw them all off and hobble over to turn off the video.

Returning to Nango for a couple weeks in May of '94, Daichi, now a first-grader, walked into Mrs. Kaida's tea shop with her first-grade son Masashi while I was there shooting the bull. I don't know who was more surprised to see the other!

After looking me over for a minute or two, and acting kind of shy, he came over and sat on my lap. And as we talked about his adventures at school, he instinctively began running his hands up and down my arm.

I smiled and asked if he had missed petting my moja-moja arms.

He paused just a second to think, then gave me that big smile of his as he nodded and said "Um!"

It felt like I had finally come home.

c 1993, Louis A. Floyd