The custom of taking off ones shoes when entering a home

I am going to have a whole heap of posts all in one go because I have written them offline whilst getting annoyed that half the time I can't get onto this blog site :(


The custom of taking off ones shoes when entering a home

I was reading a Japanese travel forum when I came across an interesting post. (here it is here) and here is another one.

It was discussing the custom of taking off shoes in people's homes.

I find it interesting that most Asian and European cultures remove their shoes when entering their own home or someone else's home but it doesn't seem so common in English-speaking countries, of course I could be wrong.

Since I have a Chinese background I've been brought up to take off shoes in our own home as well as other people's houses. However, if I go to someone else's house and everybody else has shoes on then I'll leave it on. But it depends. It depends if I think the floor is dirty or cold, in which case I'll just keep them on.

Personally I find it very weird not to take shoes off inside because:

1. Your house will get dirty a lot quicker, particularly if it's been raining or you have been walking in God-knows-what.
2. After wearing shoes all day and your feet sweating and feeling cramped, it feels so much more relaxing to just walk about barefoot, or in socks or slippers.

I also can't understand why people put their disgusting shoes with dirty soles in their wardrobe with their clean, freshly washed clothes. Very very strange! Then again I guess some people think having a shoe cabinet by the front or back door is strange ;)

That's my opinion anyway!