In Reply to: Hugging? How to deal with it? posted by Jane B on Thursday, 13. July 2006 at 00:58 Bali Time:
It means, whoever you shake hands with, your gladly accept meeting them and accept them for who they are, not matter where they are from, race, religion etc, basically just a sign of respect... this is very common in Java. (i just asked a javanese friend)
However i asked my boyfriend why its done, he said he didnt know, because in Ambon its not done at all (he's have Yogjakarta/Ambon). So i guess different areas of Indonesia do some things differently.