Cultural Differences

[laleia]

This weekend, I went to a retreat with friends. We trudged through snow and mud to get to our cabin, and we when we arrived, lo and behold, there people more fleet of foot than I who had arrived first and ...

...

... walked inside with their shoes on.

Whereas all I wanted to do was take my shoes off and cleanly walk on the carpet.

There was a brief discussion in which we voted as to whether we would be doing shoes-off or not. In fact, there were not any vocal advocates of keeping the shoes on. Whereas there were several vocal advocates as to taking the shoes off. And by that, I mean me. [In retrospect, I was probably not very respectful of Western culture. I pronounced that walking around the cabin on the carpet and in our rooms tracking mud and snow all over the place would be gross. I in fact stand by this statement, but perhaps I could have worded it more tactfully ...]

We voted and it pretty much went half-and-half, though there wasn't ever a precise count or anything formal. It was strongly divided along cultural lines. By which I mean all the Asian Americans (in which I include South Asian American and also the Belarussian/Russian American -- however you wish to identify yourself -- even though Russia is not traditionally considered a part of Asia) voted with me.

I find it interesting to note that those who did want to keep their shoes on never made any arguments for it. [Possibly this was because I was loud and vocally disrespectful of the idea? Or possibly because I was right and they knew it? :P] Also, in later discussions, I tried to find out to what extent mainstream Americans/Westerners keep their shoes on -- do they wear them in the bedroom?

Anyways, the discussion was resolved when one of the co-chairs (the white one who presumably grew up in a mainstream American/Western culture?) made the decision that shoes would come off, and since she (I am assuming here) was making the decision to step out of her comfort zone and make a rule she typically would not follow, everyone followed suit.

You know, I am way more biased than I thought about this shoes thing.

Comments

[lilyayl.livejournal.com]

In my family: You wear your shoes everywhere, unless they are very wet, muddy, or snow-covered, which case you leave them by the door. No shoes on the bed or furniture.

I was like that til junior year of college when my roommate (white and American, btw) declared our apartment a no-shoe zone. Then, of course, I went to Japan.

[lilyayl.livejournal.com]

PS: It isn't a big deal to remove one's shoes before entering a house, imo. So long as people don't have smelly feet or icky socks or something.

[darklightluna.livejournal.com]

*is kind of dead of laughter* I have not been called any kind of Asian since I was five and for some reason a couple of Japanese tourists walked up to me in Moscow.

And I'm right there with you on the biased thing. My sneakers? Are cheerfully parked way over by the door and I'm in fuzzy, fuzzy slippers. I also slept through two alarm clocks and am very late for class so don't ask why I'm commenting here.

[essbeejay.livejournal.com]

As an Asian, my inclination is always to take my shoes off when I enter someone's house - typically I ask if I don't know, b/c I'd rather not walk around in bare feet/socks where everyone's shoes have been.

Whenever we had groups of folks at our house, the Asians would always be the ones to automatically take their shoes off. My non-Asian friends were always very good about following suit (we trained them well).