Culture Differences

I still find it quite intriguing to discuss the small cultural differences that continue to pop up between Australia and Canada.  One that I find amusing is the debate over wearing shoes in the house.

Growing up in Canada, you are taught to never ever wear shoes inside.  It is considered the height of rudeness.  I never even thought about it until I moved here, and then realized that people were finding it strange that I was removing my shoes at the front door.  I've been told over and over again "Oh, just keep your shoes on, it's fine!"  With Modbury, my job involves going to people's houses for therapy and I have never taken off my shoes before going inside, nor was I expected to.

At my own house, I prefer to leave my shoes at the door.  It feels strange to go about tasks inside wearing shoes and I find shoes and socks constricting.  One exception was when we first moved to Brisbane and my worst fear was stepping barefoot onto a cockroach.  I kept my flip-flops beside the bed and refused to walk through the house at night without them on. Jeremy used to get irritated when people came to our place and kept their shoes on, but he seems to have adjusted now.  One of the Canadian girls in my class at UQ apparently forced all visitors to remove their shoes at the door, even if they were just coming by to pick her up - the Australians found this extremely baffling!

Now, as I am doing some reading up on the subject, I am surprised to find that Americans are a 'shoes in the house culture'.  I figured that one of the main reasons Canadians take off their shoes is that it's just logical because of the weather.  Obviously you're not going to want to track mud/snow etc inside and then it just becomes a habit to take off whatever footwear you have on at any time during the year.  Since parts of the US experience much of the same weather conditions, it fascinates me that they are 'shoes on' people.  I came across this blog entry discussing the same issue:

No Shoes Indoors

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Finally, you arrive in Sweden.

Maybe you’re meeting someone—maybe an old friend. A friend who could be more than a friend. A lover.

You’re welcomed at the airport, and on the trip towards his or her home, you’re almost shaking. It could be the tiredness, the effects of the long flight, the rough-edged emotions that can’t be quieted at this particular moment.

You recognize these feelings. Excited. Nervous. Overjoyed. You’ve felt them before, but never like this.

Then you arrive, your friend helping you carry your bags up the stairs and over the threshold. You stumble through the door and into the living room, eager to see the pristine white walls and Ikea-dominated apartment you’ve heard so much about.

And then you hear your friend’s voice, but it sounds different—harsher than before.

Where the hell do you think you’re going with your shoes on?

No Shoes Indoors

Swedish people have pretty strong feelings about walking around indoors with your shoes on. In short: don’t do it.

If you really want to question this fundamental rule of behavior, be prepared for the looks you’ll get: bewilderment, horror, and—most of all—disgust. When I confirmed that yes, in the United States, we do wear shoes indoors, one of my friends gave me a look that inexplicably called to mind the image of healthy green plants withering and disintegrating away into brown crumbles of nothingness in hyperspeed. It was frightening.

Through that blog entry, I came across an entire blog devoted to the promotion of taking your shoes off in the house: http://shoesoffatthedoorplease.blogspot.com.au/

I also found this blog entry, which states: Canadians take their shoes off when entering a home. There isn't any questioning it. As soon as you enter the front door you're taking off your shoes. That's just the way it is. As a Canadian myself, I find this practice completely normal. For most of my life I assumed that everyone did this.  The entire entry can be found here http://www.howtospotacanadian.ca/2009/01/they-take-their-shoes-off-indoors.html

So there you have it.  There doesn't seem to be any specific rhyme or reason to why some cultures do it and some don't.  It's just the way it is!