Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

In Dutch culture it is far more common to keep shoes on literally everywhere, so perhaps I'm biased, but I would think that in an emergency where every second counts, these people can be forgiven for not adhering to the strictest etiquette?

I'm not surprised the person last mentioned in the article, who suggests exactly that, got 800 likes on their comment. I am surprised that it even needed to be said.

Now I'm suddenly wondering (probably stupidly) whether firefighters also take their shoes off when entering a burning building.

Here in America, EMS personnel generally wear tall, reinforced boots; they are considered protective/safety equipment. We would never take them off just to enter a home

Got posted a couple times recently. This one got a couple comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474734

Does everyone in Japan wear slip-on shoes?

> Another user attracted more than 800 likes for suggesting that strict etiquette could perhaps be forsaken at such times: “It’s an emergency. I would just tell them: ‘Please step inside with your shoes on!’”

This seems like the best policy in an emergency where 30 seconds actually matters. And I actually like the East Asian custom of taking one's shoes off before entering a house and adopt it myself.

tangential, but I don't understand why keeping your shoes on in your house is a thing. It's so unsanitary. The bottom of your shoes are in contact with things like the floor of public bathrooms, animal feces (when walking on grass), dirt, mud, etc.

And it's so much more comfortable to be in your house barefoot, with socks or with slippers.

So much cleaner. I'm disgusted when people try to walk in my house with their shoes on.

More Japanese obsessed hacker news posts. What's up with this? There's a daily post on HN of various topics, usually something obscure, about Japan. Why?