Shoe Etiquette in Japan

When, where and how do you take off your shoes in Japan? The basic shoe etiquette in Japan is simple and common sense, but you’d be surprised how many foreign tourists get it wrong. Here’s the lowdown.

Shoes in Japan – image © m-louis / CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED

The Takeaway

• The whole point is to keep the dirt and grime of the street out of the building (house, temple etc).
• You do that by stepping up and out of your shoes onto the step or sunoko (wooden slats).
• You either leave your shoes where they are, or move them to a rack nearby.
  When you leave, you step down directly into your shoes (slip-on shoes make this much easier).
• Do not take your shoes off and walk to the step or sunoko in your bare feet or sock feet.
• Do not stand on the step or sunoko to take off your shoes.
• When you leave, step down from the step or sunoko directly into your shoes.
• If you find this hard to remember, imagine that the floor or ground is covered with wet paint.
• If your kids find this hard to remember, make it into a game: “the floor is lava.”

The Basic Idea

Once you understand the basic principle behind Japanese shoe etiquette, you’ll have no problem getting it right in Japan. Here’s the basic idea: the point is to keep the dirt and grime of the street out of the interior of a building (house, temple, restaurant etc). So, you take off your shoes before you enter the building. Pretty simple, right? And, this is practiced not only in Japan but across Asia, in many other parts of the world, and even by many households in countries that don’t have a universal shoe-removal custom. Of course, the devil is in the details, so read on.

Shoes in front of a temple – image © Cyril Bèle / CC BY 2.0 DEED

The Details

First, you don’t have to remove your shoes to enter most buildings in Japan. You don’t have to remove your shoes in most hotels, most restaurants, public buildings, commercial buildings etc. Here are the places where you usually have to remove your shoes:

• private homes
• ryokan
• temple buildings
• sento and onsen (public baths and hot springs)
• traditional restaurants (especially in Kyoto)

The good thing is you almost never have to guess about whether or not to remove your shoes. Here’s a simple tip: If you have to step up to enter a building, you probably have to remove your shoes. Other things to look out for include a shoe rack, plastic slippers lined up near the entrance or on a rack nearby, a place to sit while you remove your shoes, and perhaps a shoehorn.

Tawaraya ryokan entrance – image © Chris Rowthorn

And here’s the simple rule: When you step up to enter the building, even just a few centimeters onto wooden slats (sunoko), you step out of your shoes, leaving them at street level, so that you “land” on the next level barefoot (or in sock feet). As I said, it’s pretty simple. And when you leave the place, you step down directly into your shoes.

First: Some Common Mistakes

In order to understand the right way to do it, it’s useful to look at the wrong way. So, the other day, I went to Tofuku-ji Temple, in Kyoto, armed with my camera. Amazingly, one foreign tourist after another walked up and did it wrong, all while Japanese tourists, often right next to them, did it exactly right. Here’s a picture of the wooden slats (sunoko) at Tofuku-ji. Note the “no shoes” signs right on the sunoko.

Sunoko at Tofuku-ji Temple – image © Chris Rowthorn

The first mistake is extremely popular: Taking off your shoes some distance from the sunoko (or step) and walking in bare or sock feet to the sunoko. A moment’s thought should tell you how this totally defeats the purpose of the whole exercise: If you walk across the dirty ground in your sock feet, you will transfer all that stuff into the building you enter, especially if you don’t use the interior slippers they provide. You can imagine how the little grains of gravel wreak havoc on the wooden floors inside the temple. Here’s a man demonstrating this perfectly:

Sockfoot stroll to sunoko – image © Chris Rowthorn

The next mistake is also very common: Stepping up and then removing your shoes. This is nicely demonstrated by a woman who takes of her shoes while standing on the sunoko and looking right at the “no shoes” sign:

Shoes on the sunoko – image © Chris Rowthorn

Another mistake is basically the first one, but in reverse: When leaving the place, instead of placing one’s shoes down on street level and stepping into them, walking in sock feet some distance away and putting them on there. You might think this is harmless, but what this does is grind all kinds of dirt and gravel into your socks so that you carve up the floor in the next place you visit. Here’s a fellow with a particularly impressive display of this technique:

Walking away holding shoes – image © Chris Rowthorn

Now: Here’s How It’s Done

As I mentioned above, while I was shooting the above pictures, a steady stream of Japanese tourists came to the temple and displayed perfect shoe etiquette. It was clear that they had done this thousands of times (like, every time they entered their home), so that it was now essentially a spinal reflex.

First, you walk up to the sunoko or step. Then, you step up and out of your shoes, leaving the shoes on street level, and landing on the sunoko or step in bare or sock feet, as this young lady demonstrates here:

Stepping out of shoes onto sunoko – image © Chris Rowthorn

Then, you either leave your shoes where they are (in small places) or you bend down and pick them up and transfer them to a nearby shoe rack. Some places give you plastic bags in which you carry them as you tour the building. When visiting a private home, traditional restaurant or ryokan, a nice touch is to bend down and turn the shoes around, with their toes facing away from the step (the sign of a well-raised person in Japan). Here, the same young lady bends down to pick up her shoes, which she will place in the nearby shoe rack:

Picking up shoes – image © Chris Rowthorn

Finally, when leaving the place, you either step down right into your shoes, or you grab your shoes from the shoe rack, place them on street level and step down right into them. Here are two photos of a Japanese visitor doing it exactly right:

Putting down shoes – image © Chris Rowthorn

Stepping into shoes – image © Chris Rowthorn

A Final Tip: Just Imagine the Floor or Ground is Covered With Wet Paint

Imagine the ground is covered with wet paint – image © Paige Smith-Saunders

If all the above is confusing, a good mind trick to get it right every time is to imagine that the ground – or the floor of the genkan (foyer) – is covered with wet paint. It’s now all over the bottoms of your shoes. You certainly wouldn’t want to track that onto the sunoko, the step or inside the building. And, by the same token, you wouldn’t walk to walk on the wet paint with your bare feet or sock feet. And if you have kids, you can always tell them to imagine that “the floor is lava.”

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