Comments on: Take your shoes off at the door

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:02:21 +0000

That dynamic would, almost by definition, only come up in a culture in which there is no universal norm for this.

Where there is one, and it’s in favour of shore removal, the host wouldn’t need to ask and there would be no sense of pressure or even a request. It would be regarded as the reciprocal courtesy. As the host has obligations to the guest, so the guest has obligations to the host.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 03:31:20 +0000

It’s a power thing. As a guest I’m insulted when someone asks me to take off my shoes at the door. It violates every precept of hospitality, number one of which is, don’t order your guests around. Allow them to be comfortable in their own way.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:55:19 +0000

Interesting. I grew up in Canada with two British born parents. They raised me to assume one removes shoes indoors. Many people I knew in childhood and youth shared this assumption, apparently regardless of origin, but many did not. I could find, or at least I can remember, no pattern to it.

I dimly recall at one time thinking it was a Canadian/British vs American thing, in that all Canadians and Brits took their shoes off and all Americans kept them on all the time. But I guess that was never true either.

But I doubt the rationale was ever very sophisticated or consciously health-driven. More like the women of the house not wanting the dirt of the street on their floors.

By: Lucklucky

Lucklucky — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 20:34:49 +0000

At least they wrote the last paragraph.

The fact that it is “dirtier” does not mean that it is worse. Maybe it is even better for the immune system.

By: Ross

Ross — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 15:26:04 +0000

Never did as a kid, but now not taking shoes off is the exception in my experience — across religion, ethnicity, etc. Maybe it's a DMV urban thing.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:56:59 +0000

When I was a kid, taking your shoes off at the door was something our Chinese and Japanese neighbors did. It was still definitely foreign. You did take your shoes off though if they were covered in mud — well, after your mom yelled at you to take them off. In California, they gave up on brick when they realized that a single earthquake could level a city. I suspect that may have popularized wood-frame housing beyond just the West Coast.

By: Candide III

Candide III — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:36:44 +0000

So the Japs have got it right with their genkan and dosoku kinshi and degrees of cleanliness. Whoda thunk it?

By: Slovenian Guest

Slovenian Guest — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 12:49:17 +0000

For a long time I believed Americans only did that on TV and in the movies. They don’t really wear shoes indoors do they? They don’t really build whole houses with drywall, or do they? A proper house must be made out of bricks! So any three little piggies can’t just come by and blow it away…

Good luck punching a wall in Europe!