Everybody’s got feet and when feet are missing, diseased, or painful it makes life very difficult. In southeast Asia feet are considered to be cleaner than shoes. It is very common to take shoes off when entering a home and it is perfectly acceptable to walk around someone’s home in bare feet. But I noticed while back in the first of my worlds, that walking around someone’s house barefoot is considered rather disgusting behavior. Being stocking–footed is fine but being barefoot appears to be rather revolting to the natives. You can see it in their faces even if they are too polite to say anything. It seems that they see feet themselves as the source of disgusting smells and fungus. Perhaps this is because people must wear shoes most of the year because of the cold climate and so feet don't get much air, and thus actually ARE more disgusting.
In the southeast Asia, however, shoes are considered much more filthy than bare feet. In some areas you will offend people if you wear your shoes in their house. Far better to walk in barefoot even if you are dropping fungus spores all over the place. Because of the warm climate people do wear slippers more and feet get more air. But on formal occasions it is important to have nice-looking feet, otherwise you should hide them in closed-toe shoes. Women especially like to use nail polish on their toes. There are thousands of manicurists/pedicurists who work in beauty shops, or have their own business and go around making home visits.
Babies, on the other hand, should always have their feet covered in public. Despite the torrid climate, it is considered tantamount to child abuse to take your baby out in public with bare feet. The guy in this picture would have total strangers come up to him in righteous indignation and rebuke him for taking the baby out without foot coverings. (A babythat young also shouldn’t be held upright – but that’s another tale for another day.)
Showing the soles of your feet is also in poor taste in many areas. Of course most of the time people are standing on them so this is not a problem. But what I have found personally challenging is when you ae invited to sit on the floor in someone’s house. Many rural houses are simple and may not have conventional chairs, and if they do, the chairs are outside on the ground level. Sitting on a slatted bamboo floor and trying to keep your legs folded up so that nobody has to look at the soles of your feet can be challenging. I never have been much good at cross-legged yoga positions. Fortunately in the No area, women aren’t supposed to sit cross-legged. They sit with their knees bent and their legs folded off to one side.
While it is true that people spend a lot of leisure time wearing flip flops (rubber slippers) they often must wear shoes at work or school. Since many families don’t want to spend a lot of money on quality shoes especially for kids who outgrow them rapidly, many shoes are made of cheap materials and are not conducive to good ventilation. (Indeed, sometimes there are no quality shoes to be had even if you DID want to spend the money.) Thus fungus does grow well. Fortunately buildings and public vehicles usually have good ventilation since windows are open and so smell is not a problem. But once in a while you get in a situation where the ventilation isn’t too good. Like on an airplane being loaded with passengers who of course are dressed up and wearing their closed shoes. And the pilot, presumably wishing to save fuel so he can get a bonus, does not turn on the air conditioning until you have reached cruising altitude. As the heat in the cabin rises dramatically, the fungus infections of all these feet start to smell quite ripe. In fact I have heard that in China, one of the most common complaints of travellors is other people taking their shoes off in the trains.
For those who have King Tut type feet (at left) it can be quite challenging to get around socially. Perhaps this other footwear I saw on the internet would be a possible solution:
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