Taking shoes off – differences

I don´t have personal experiences with the Japaneses.  However, I think I could enjoy their company. That is to say I admire their habit of taking shoes off when entering a house. This is a similar with the Finnish culture.

In my opinion one of the strange side´ of the culture in Belgium is how to use your shoes. I mean, do you wear or take off when you are indoors.

When you invite a Belgian to a dinner at your house, they don´t take their shoes off. During the dinner you´ll see them wearing their shoes despite the fact that you aren´t doing so.

For the Scandinavian culture this is more or less shocking. We always leave our shoes in the hall when returning from outdoors. In general, the majority of Finns is used to using woollen shocks instead of indoor shoes.

I think this habit of ours is a natural consequence of practical reasons. Especially during winter there is lots of snow inf Finland. It melts when coming back from skiing for example. You always carry some snow with you. This could lead to problems with the floor, we reason.

Therefore, I very often politely ask visitors to respect our habits while putting their jackets onto the coat rack.

However, I don´t mind when somebody is walking with their shoes in our apartment although as a cleaner I am suffering pain and terrified. It´s their culture.

Being polite I avoid conflicts with my friends. I do not dare to express my true feelings. Later, I´ll clean up the floor if it is dirty. I have to admit that I haven´t had problems with dirtiness.

It´s obvious that compared with Finns the Belgians are different.

I read an article about Japanese culture. I have understood that the Japaneses are like Finns. They don´t wear normal outdoor shoes inside of their apartments.

In that perspective I could like Japaneses if I ever met somebody yet. We seem to be soul-mates when it comes to wearing shoes.