*When in Rome Do as the Romans Do!* This friend was a little more gung-ho than your average Akira, but it shows you just how far this tradition extends itself into everyday life. I had one friend who was so particular about this custom, he would insist on me taking off my shoes before getting into his car. *When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do!* There were places I thought were abnormal for taking off my shoes like kindergartens, eating establishments, bowling alleys, karaoke rooms, lots of weird places you wouldn’t even think of taking your shoes off at in America, even the bathroom at bars and weirder places yet. Yes! This was one of those times that if the whole Japanese country were going to jump off the cliff I was going to jump too. I followed the custom at first only because every one else was doing it. When I first got to Japan it was awkward at first to take off my shoes, because I had shoes with laces and it was mendoukusai (tedious) when I left to tie my shoes up again after just un-tying them when I arrived. Like other countries of the East, the Japanese take off their shoes before entering houses, dwellings, apartments, condo’s, etc. Shoes are great, but in Japan, shoes can become cumbersome due to the limitations on living spaces, but more importantly the act of taking off one’s shoes before entering a home or dwelling is a tradition. Well that sort of thing wouldn’t happen in Japan. Also I remember accidentally stepping on some doggy doo and accidentally walking all over my mom’s carpets and then jumping on my bed.
#Japanese karaoke romaji full#
I am full blooded American and can remember as a kid going to sleep in my shoes a couple of times. Before you step foot inside a Japanese dwelling you must take off your shoes. You can keep your shoes on all day in America. In America, we wouldn’t have this problem because Americans go everywhere in their shoes, and it doesn’t matter, because you never have to take them off. Like incense rising up from the depths of odor hell, your friend subjugates everyone to that wretched, didn’t mean to know you, go home! Take a bath! Wash your feet! That wretched friendly scent of your friend’s sweaty polyester, fibrous odor drip that is by now smelling all too familiar.
Because it can get pretty chilly in the winter, are all gathered around a nice, warm, and fluffy kotatsu ((quilted) electric blanket \ table), to play the card game buta no shippo (Pig’s tail) Oh no! Not that smells again. Let’s imagine we are in Japan at a small gathering of some friends. How atrocious! How outrageous! I thought to myself, be-gone you foul beast at once! Come back when you can be more civilized, or at least when your feet aren't noticeable to the olfactory senses at the distance of 6 feet. I would be embarrassed for him and me, because I thought that I could control the way things smelled on other people or something, but alas I couldn’t.Ĭan you imagine eating at the dinner table or trying to have candid conversation with some new friends you just met only to find out the friend you had brought didn’t have control on his feet hygiene and the odor most unbearable. I can’t really tell you if the odor emanated from his feet, or his socks, because, well it didn’t matter they both stunk.
The smell of his feet could cut through a stable full of horses and cattle chewing their cud. A Brief History of the tradition of the Japanese Genkan.ĭuring my first stay in Japan, I used to get embarrassed because my American friend’s feet would give off the most putrid of odors, and for long distances too.
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