The Japanese shoe taboo is about purity. It's not about protecting the floor but about the idea of cleanliness. Walking in with outdoor shoes is the equivalent of deliberately walking into a western home with dogshit all over your shoes, or (since most Japanese homes have small family altars inside) spiritual desecration.
Depending on the boots, you might not want to wear them while "idle"¹ in any case, though that's mostly a non-concern with modern safety shoes.
¹ mandatory note: most emergency responders have tons of work while "idle", I just mean "not actively responding"
This seems like the best policy in an emergency where 30 seconds actually matters. And I actually like the East Asian custom of taking one's shoes off before entering a house and adopt it myself.
And it's so much more comfortable to be in your house barefoot, with socks or with slippers.
So much cleaner. I'm disgusted when people try to walk in my house with their shoes on.
First, in the rare cases you describe (when was the last time you stepped on feces?) one would indeed leave their shoes outside. But in the day-to-day your shoes have some dust on them and that's it - you won't even notice it's there when compared to the dust that already accumulates daily. If you live in a climate where this assumption doesn't hold (snowy areas come to mind) then the equation changes.
Second, the floor is usually stone and therefore designed for being walked on with shoes. I would feel awkward walking on some polished wood, but if the difference between inside and outside is "this one is less coarse but just as hard" then I wouldn't see a good reason for taking my shoes off. I would probably avoid the rug, but that's me.
As for comfort, keeping your shoes on also means one less thing to do when going in and out. Do not underestimate the path with less friction.
I have to imagine the person who leaves their shoes on either never goes outside, or just has filthy floors.
Nah, the main function of shoes is (to support your feet and) prevent injury. Cleanliness is second on the list.
[ed.: added braces]
Unlike the commenter above you, I don’t really agree that it’s completely sanitary, though. I’m just saying that keeping you clean is actually pretty far down the list.
Another thing about whether the floor is sanitary: that changes a lot based on how you use your floor. If you eat, sleep, or sit on the floor often like in a traditional Japanese home, keeping the floor clean is a lot more important.
Keeping your feet clean and protecting them from surfaces are the primary purposes of shoes. Some people need them for support after having worn shoes too often (my parents are in this situation and have a separate set of "indoor shoes" just for this), or some sort of disability that needs those super-wide-sole shoes, but in general they are not for supporting your feet.
Hiking boots can significantly enhance stability and of course walking over sharp rocks becomes trivial.
I also forgot to mention steel toed boots, no slip restaurant shoes, and other injury-protective shoes.
Then you’ve got temperature: hot pavement, cold snow.
Removing one's shoes before entering a house isn't a thing in South Africa.
Filth can sometimes be a good thing.
Then sanitation itself is a but of a moot. Bacteria can spread million different ways, it’s mostly futile fight. If you wear flip-flops all day and don’t wash your feet, don’t shower after using public bathrooms, etc - whats the point?
What is characteristic of "the American South" here?
The society is based so strongly on group cohesion and de-emphasis of the individual, the experience of living there is very, very different than the West.
I think that this "deep cultural difference" is what the original comment was trying to get at. Sadly the reference point of "American South" ended up triggering a different (less useful) trajectory for the responses.
It actually makes it harder to tackle the discrimination, since it's not openly admitted. Glass walls and ceiling.
(Recommended read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
'There is a "virtual taboo" in the Japanese media against discussing the topic, leading to widespread public ignorance.')
The biggest historical commonality between the American South and Japan - or, at least, the Tokugawa shogunate that was ruling around the same time as the South - was that both of them were at one point ruled by a cabal of essentially feudal lords. There is a lot of convergent social evolution that happens when your country's economic elite all make their money by owning land - lots of strange social titles, honorifics start floating around, people start talking around problems, and the like. However, this comparison is only skin deep, and there's plenty of things the Tokugawas did that have no parallel, or even worked backwards, to what happened in the historically contemporaneous American south:
- Sakoku (the policy of keeping Japan completely closed to trade and immigration).
- While America generally has had a long streak of veneration of the police, they never reinvented anything close to the samurai in terms of being a hereditary warrior class with a tax stipend.
- Likewise, the American South did not have a caste system; Japan did (and so did France?!?)
This makes more sense when you remember that the Tokugawa shogunate itself is the time reversal of the American South: the Tokugawas were born out of a long civil war and ended with a foreign invasion (from America) while the American South was born from foreign invasion (of Americans) and ended with a civil war.
The American South is also, interestingly enough, a mirror of Japan in other dimensions as well. The reason why the Tokugawas shut the country's borders for hundreds of years was because they understood that Christian missionaries were a front for a larger invasion force that would pillage the country's resources and abduct people to become slaves in other countries. Of course, the South was buying slaves abducted in other countries in massive quantities.
Going back to the convergent social evolution I mentioned before, you can see some of this in Japan today. Kyoto is notorious for doing exactly the same kind of backhanded compliment bullshit the South loves doing. But even then, that's one part of Japan, that was formerly the capital city. One stop on the Shinkansen takes you to Osaka where people are about as open and outgoing as Americans are.
I'm not surprised the person last mentioned in the article, who suggests exactly that, got 800 likes on their comment. I am surprised that it even needed to be said.
Now I'm suddenly wondering (probably stupidly) whether firefighters also take their shoes off when entering a burning building.
But ambulances in with full sirens begging over their speaker-system to have pedestrians at Shibuya crossing let the vehicle through, is probably the worst thing about Japan.
As for your second question, I’m reminded of Bob Mortimer in Would I lie To You: “… then the fire brigade came and ruined the whole house” - “Bob, surely the fire was ruining the house” - “No, water damage”. Maybe if those darn firefighters had taken their boots off, there had been a bit more left of Bobs childhood home.