Forgotten Quirks 2 - Shoes

Shoes... where to begin...

I don't wear shoes more than I do.

It's like when I was little and we use to spend all day down at the creek in the woods at the end of our street. Shoes were optional, and most of the time that meant that they didn't come with us.

Here, overseas, for the last 3.5 years of my life, I haven't worn shoes. It's not because of a creek that called my name.

Mostly it is because I have an office job, and I am indoors most of the days.

It's because here, it's a cultural thing.

Here are some basic rules:

1. Outdoor shoes are for outdoors.

2. Slippers are for indoors - if you have any. In Turkey, you have slippers on all the time, and you ALWAYS have extra for every extra guest you have. Closed toed for winter and flip flop looking ones for summer. Here in Ktown, slippers indoors aren't required.

3. You do NOT where your outdoor shoes inside. EVER. They are considered dirty. We take our shoes off when we come into our house and even when we come into the office.

4. You do not leave them just thrown around- meaning the bottom of your shoes should never be facing up.

5. When a guest comes to visit you, you will get their shoes ready for them to put on when they leave. Like this picture above, all of the shoes are paired together and facing outward. There is usually only one entrance in which you enter and exit a home. This point is mostly here in Ktown, but I had several people in Turkey do this too.

6. You don't go barefoot outdoors.

So if you ever find yourself in a Central Asia household (or most of the general overseas population), just be conscious the cultural norms.

It has become so normal in my life that when I visit the states I take them off when entering a home without realizing it. It's also a problem cause in America most of the homes (like my parents) have multiple entrances. The apartments I have lived in only have one door, and all of my shoes have been kept at the entrance way(depending on what season it is). When I was home in the states  for 2 months in 2010 staying with my parents, my shoes got left at three different doors and I have to go find them...

I was always forgetting or 'losing' my shoes! It was quite frustrating.