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No, you actually step out of your shoes an up to a wooden platform which shoes never trod. And yes, the top and even many middle level dining establishments in

No, you actually step out of your shoes an up to a wooden platform which shoes never trod. And yes, the top and even many middle level dining establishments in Japan actually do require guests to leave their street shoes in an entry way, called a Genkan. Nobody steps with their socks onto shoe trodden surface. It's not a complicated but of geometry, you loosen your foot in the shoes to make them ready for stepping out from, then step up onto a raised and dirt free platform, then if you have good manners, turn around, lower yourself, and use one hand to collect and turn your shoes so that they are not in the direct line of traffic and are facing away from the house, so that one may step into them from the wooden platform without needing to step backwards as you exit. This is amazingly simple, done by literally millions of people every single day, multiple times, and has been this way for centuries in all kinds of weather and many styles of shoes. There is no dirt tracked in on your socks, there may be some 'stepping on the top of your own shoes' if you are in a rush and clumsy or a child. But grown ups rarely have much difficulty with this unless they are visiting from somewhere else and cannot be observant. Nearly every doorway in the country also has a handy long handled shoehorn to ease the donning of your shoes without requiring a seat. Community centers and elderly homes and some households with elderly residents will also have a small stool that is at an oblique angle between the 'dirty' shoe level and the clean wooden platform, allowing one to sit and take off shoes, then swivel without putting feet onto filth and stand again in the clean. I'm frankly astonished at the seemingly purposeful denseness of comprehension for a simple act of cleanliness. The 'filth will make us stronger' approach reminds me of the historical writings of the 10th-century Arab diplomat Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who chronicled the Volga Vikings (Rus') and was the inspiration for the 'Viking morning bowl' scene from the movie The 13th Warrior. Just 'Ewww'

b112 19d ago
I don't know. That other fellow had a point about the toothbrush. And if that's true, surely some filth is getting in, right? I mean, dirt moves on its own. Bacteria moves, and dirt comes with them. After all, how do you even know your soap is clean? https://www.today.com/health/recall/hand-soap-recall-2025-rcna224335 https://www.today.com/health/recall/hand-soap-recall-2025-rc... And the recall was for deadly bacteria. Probably a growth medium too. Modern soap has lots of ingredients, each could be dirty at source. So if your soap is dirty, how can your feet be clean? I'm still not convinced.
- samus 18d ago
  The toothbrush is a moot point if you have a separate be bathroom and toilet. If they are combined the spread of fecal particles is curbed by flushing the toilet with closed lid. And in the end the toothbrush is flushed before using and then coated with toothpaste, which often contains detergents and microbial agenda, and which is finally flushed out. I don't think you can conclude from that incident that all soap is always contaminated. And even if it's not perfectly clean, in the end ist's all flushed away. I don't really get what your point is. Are you regularly eating from the pedestrian way?
  - b112 18d ago
    My point was that you seemed incredibly positive that Japan houses o'clean, and the rest of the world is as apes, in caves, picking parasites off of each others backs. This obsession with shoes, doesn't cover the fly droppings, the dirt upon clothing, and the fact that your body is always covered in bacteria, your gut filled with bacteria, your lunch covered in it if you ever eat fresh greens, you will die without bacteria. I'm not suggesting you walk around with dirty shoes, that's silly. Yet I feel you are a city dweller, because the world is made of dirt, and a rural farm worker spends all day in it. To no harm to the worker. Dirt is natural. Concrete is not. So my point was just, you seemed a little upset at dirt. After all: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49608023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49608023
    - samus 18d ago
      I just don't get why you treat this as something super complicated. There is street and nature level dirt which contains an unknowable degree of contamination that can be unambiguously bad for you if you ingest it, no matter what that BBC article says, and the inside areas where people eat and sleep. The vast majority of cultures prefer to maintain that separation and to maintain a considerably higher level of cleanliness in the living areas, no matter if it's not at semiconductor fab level. Specific to Japanese culture is just that they prefer to sit at low tables and to sleep on the ground on duvets; it should be easy to see why they want less dirt on the ground than other cultures.

b112 19d ago

I don't know. That other fellow had a point about the toothbrush. And if that's true, surely some filth is getting in, right? I mean, dirt moves on its own. Bacteria moves, and dirt comes with them. After all, how do you even know your soap is clean? https://www.today.com/health/recall/hand-soap-recall-2025-rcna224335 https://www.today.com/health/recall/hand-soap-recall-2025-rc... And the recall was for deadly bacteria. Probably a growth medium too. Modern soap has lots of ingredients, each could be dirty at source. So if your soap is dirty, how can your feet be clean? I'm still not convinced.

samus 18d ago
The toothbrush is a moot point if you have a separate be bathroom and toilet. If they are combined the spread of fecal particles is curbed by flushing the toilet with closed lid. And in the end the toothbrush is flushed before using and then coated with toothpaste, which often contains detergents and microbial agenda, and which is finally flushed out. I don't think you can conclude from that incident that all soap is always contaminated. And even if it's not perfectly clean, in the end ist's all flushed away. I don't really get what your point is. Are you regularly eating from the pedestrian way?
- b112 18d ago
  My point was that you seemed incredibly positive that Japan houses o'clean, and the rest of the world is as apes, in caves, picking parasites off of each others backs. This obsession with shoes, doesn't cover the fly droppings, the dirt upon clothing, and the fact that your body is always covered in bacteria, your gut filled with bacteria, your lunch covered in it if you ever eat fresh greens, you will die without bacteria. I'm not suggesting you walk around with dirty shoes, that's silly. Yet I feel you are a city dweller, because the world is made of dirt, and a rural farm worker spends all day in it. To no harm to the worker. Dirt is natural. Concrete is not. So my point was just, you seemed a little upset at dirt. After all: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49608023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49608023
  - samus 18d ago
    I just don't get why you treat this as something super complicated. There is street and nature level dirt which contains an unknowable degree of contamination that can be unambiguously bad for you if you ingest it, no matter what that BBC article says, and the inside areas where people eat and sleep. The vast majority of cultures prefer to maintain that separation and to maintain a considerably higher level of cleanliness in the living areas, no matter if it's not at semiconductor fab level. Specific to Japanese culture is just that they prefer to sit at low tables and to sleep on the ground on duvets; it should be easy to see why they want less dirt on the ground than other cultures.