BEHAVIOR
Bare No Sole
The Japanese custom of never going barefoot outside keeps their soles clean, but has a downside.
Everyone is familiar with the Japanese custom of removing shoes before entering a home. But an equally important practice, that gets far less attention, is that footwear must always be worn outside. In other words, no prancing around outside while barefoot. That is because the bottoms of your feet will get dirty and make it impossible to go inside without bringing in the dirt — unless you wash your feet before entering.
In the 23 years that I’ve known my Japanese wife, I’ve never seen her walking barefoot- even inside the house. This behavior is in sharp contrast to some other East/South Asian and Pacific Island societies that spend a lot of time going barefoot outside. Even in the Western world, it is not uncommon to go in and out of the house with bare feet.
Surprisingly, the same unwritten rule applies to children in Japan. It would be a very rare situation to see Japanese kids running around outside without shoes, except perhaps at a beach. But until the children (and adults) step onto the sand, their feet must be in some kind of footwear such as outdoor slippers (flip-flops). And, they will either rinse their feet off at the beach or as soon as they get home.
Going barefoot within the house would be OK, but almost everybody in Japan uses indoor slippers. Whether barefoot or wearing slippers, it would be unthinkable to enter the toilet without slipping into your “bathroom” slippers. Otherwise, you would be tracking the contaminants of the bathroom floor to the rest of the house.
A foot clinic in Japan, operated by Iwao Kasahara, has studied the health of people in East Asian countries where it is common to walk barefoot — especially as children — and compared the findings to Japan, where nobody walks barefoot. He concluded that numerous physical (and mental) ailments in Japanese society stem from the custom of always wearing shoes. Japanese children suffer from bunions, ungrounded toes, and flat feet. The development of their sole balance, between the ages of 5 and 10 years, is adversely affected by always wearing shoes. Without a sturdy foot foundation, their upper body becomes unstable, which can lead to long-term issues including chronic pain in various parts of the body, hunched back, and scoliosis. Whereas, children in societies that walk barefoot, have well-balanced soles and toes that grasp the ground firmly, which maintains a good balance of the body.
Kasahara is spreading the word that the sole of the foot controls most of the balance against the powerful force of gravity and that proper development of the sole is vital to overall health. He says, “We should balance our whole body, starting from the sole…”
It seems that Japanese society has a formidable challenge in that respect, as long as they continue their custom of never going barefoot.
