Keeping COVID O
A spotlight on Japan’s culture of cleanliness in the COV TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
ARTS & CULTURE SECTION
that lies outside representing the and dangerous. (and/or changing symbolises the cr between what Oh as “the omnipres sanctuary that is
Photo: Creative Commons
physical ‘dirtiness’ as soto, then, but ra ness’; the fact tha
Alice French (Yamagata) We all remember our first time. The red-faced apologies. The awkward, shuffling retreat to the door. The vows never to make the same mistake again. The unspeakable incident I’m referring to is, of course, the cardinal sin of forgetting to remove one’s shoes before entering a Japanese house (if you thought I was referring to something else, please remove your mind from the gutter).
While stepping inside fully shod may not be a problem in one’s home country, in Japan, it is considered the hallmark of rudeness. 28
However, the reason for this apparent obsession with removing shoes is far more complex than a simple desire to keep tatami mats clean. As anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney revealed with her research in the ‘80s, the removal of one’s shoes when entering the home also demarcates the soto (outside) from the uchi (inside), a dichotomy that underpins much of Japanese culture and society[1]. The soto vs uchi opposition applies not only to physical outdoor and indoor spaces, but also to social situations. One’s own social circle (family, friends, and work colleagues) is considered uchi, associated with familiarity, safety, and comfort, whereas the rest of society
social uchi realm traditionally defin kaisha (company) that it is customa shoes when ente or workplace, but konbini, supermar all of these sites the latter three ex the social outsid shoes is not deem
I am aware tha a nation’s footw COVID-19 situatio at best, but do s Removing shoes iceberg when it views on cleanl Japanese culture.
The importance binary can be tr beliefs, which cleanliness with dirtiness with keg or spiritual impu is custom to wa
