flemmings | (no subject)

One thing I find on these Tiktok videos I keep watching instead of, yanno, reading something improving or reading something I want to get off the shelf or just reading, is the common wisdom that Canadians take their shoes off in the house. I mean, yes of course I do, I lived in Japan and some behaviours just stick, like putting my hand out, thumb up, when I have to walk in front of someone. But. But. I started taking my shoes off five years before I ever went to Japan, when I moved into an apartment with woooden floors and another tenant underneath me. Before that it was shoes on all the time. Just, at some point evidently everyone decided to take their shoes off.

Boots of course were different. If they were wet or muddy of course you took them off. But otherwise no, you kept them on even if you were lying on a bed in the daytime.

Last week's reading wasn't much, probably because of those Tiktok videos. Flora's Fury gave me a reading hangover. But otherwise only Dr. Siri #13 which had a bit too much Message for me.

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I guess it must be regional? For the first 30-odd years of my I'd never met anyone who didn't take their shoes off at the front door, to the point that I confidently told everyone in Japan the "shoes indoors in America" thing was an urban legend. Then I moved here and shocked my landlords by not wearing shoes inside; they did, and it kinda felt like discovering cryptids exist.

Maybe regional. The tikto people from the southern states are all 'what are you talking about, of course we keep our shoes on'. But maybe generational. One 80 year old said 'we never took them off when I was younger but then people started' which was exactly my experience.

I can't remember when it changed. Down in England none of my friends took their shoes off before coming into the house until the 2000s when we moved up north. It's definitely a thing in Scotland, not to automatically take shoes off but to ask, or at least clock to see if anyone else is doing the same.

I guess this is connected to the idea of trekking in mud from the outside, more likely in bad weather.

I can't get keeping shoes on in places where it rains a lot, which is what I consider the British Isles and our own west coast. Don't you want to let your shoes dry? Or has someone invented waterproof running shoes?

Someone said in their experience it's originally a class thing (isn't everything in Britain?) - "shoes off at the door" is a sign you'll be engaging in the labour to clean the floor yourself. Certainly, I grew up in a shoes-on house but now tend to be shoes-off because sod mopping floors more often than absolutely necessary.

Ah yes, I can see the reasoning. The upper classes have people to clean up after them, but of course. But now that there are no servants, shoes off.

I think taking shoes off became more of a standard thing with fitted carpets. But many Brits would take their cue from seeing a shoe cupboard or a row of footwear near the front door, showing them where to put wet shoes. Haven't seen many places with drying racks yet!

Yes, broadloom would have been a great incentive to removing shoes. But we had it at the family house and nobody took their shoes off there.

Drying racks might be a good idea. I'm sad there are no waterproof running shoes though.