By Suzanne Kamata
So there I was, jacket zipped, MP3 player charged and loaded, sneakers laced and tied. Just as I was about to go out the door to embark on my power walk, I realised that I’d left the keys on the table in the other room. No one else was in the house. What a bother!
I considered my options. One, I could go out and leave the house unlocked, but I didn’t want to do that. Two, I could try to crawl on my hands and knees to the table without letting my feet touch the floor. Three, I could take off my jacket, lay it down like a carpet, and step on that instead of the bare wooden floor. Four, I could untie, unlace, and step out of my shoes and, in my socks, go get the keys.
I’ve lived in Japan for over 20 years, so I know better than to wear shoes in the house. After all this time, I can’t bring myself to wear shoes indoors in the United States, either, though I was brought up treading on carpet while shod. Most of my footwear is of the slip-on variety—clogs, flip-flops, pumps, loafers—but I still prefer lace-up athletic shoes for exercise.
On this day, I managed to walk on my knees to the table, grab the keys, and get back to the entryway, all without letting my soles touch the floor.
Shortly after that, I was again standing in an entryway while visiting an American friend in Kamakura. My shoes were laced and tied. She had just pulled on her boots and zipped them when she discovered that she had forgotten something. I was prepared to commiserate with her about the nuisance of taking off one’s shoes when, to my surprise, she re-entered the house with her boots on, to retrieve the forgotten bag.
My jaw dropped. This friend had also lived in Japan for a very long time. “You go into your house with your shoes on?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s too much trouble to take them off.”
Perhaps this was common. Maybe all over Japan, people were secretly stepping onto the floors of their homes in spike-heeled sandals and hiking boots, and who knows what else!
Curious to know, I asked a Japanese friend—an older woman, with grown children—if she’d ever done such a thing.
“Well,” she said, leaning close, “sometimes in winter, when I’ve already got my boots on, I quickly step inside and hope no one’s watching.”
Again, my jaw dropped. “And what about your children?”
“If they did it, I would scold them,” she assured me. “We’re not supposed to wear shoes in the house.”
Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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