Why would I need to remove my shoes before going into someone's home?
People from the Middle East and Asia often take off their shoes, and so if I go to their house, do I take off my shoes too? Uh-huh, yes I do. In fact, one student I had was kind of rebellious. She was Asian and she had a Korean boyfriend, and she saw the shoes out in front and she didn't take hers off. Ultimately it led to the breakup of that couple. One of the reasons why people, there are practical reasons, is that they don't want to bring the dirt from the outside to the inside. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. But sometimes it can be almost like the sacred and the profane. The house is the sacred, and outdoors, you leave that behind and you're entering literally the sanctity of the home. So if people take off their shoes, you take off your shoes too. And if they're Japanese they'll have the shoes pointing inside towards the door. Make sure you have yours pointing the same way. And in some households, Iranian households, they have indoor shoes. Slippers that they put on when they're inside.
