Is it acceptable in Japan to wear outdoor shoes inside for health reasons?

Question

I believe that in Japan it is customary to remove your shoes when entering someone’s home among other places.

Due to health reasons I wear a custom molded carbon fibre foot & ankle orthotic, because it’s custom molded it really only fits with the shoes that I had at the time it was made, and because its just carbon fibre the bottom has zero grip and can't be worn without shoes (it would just slide around on the floor.) How strict is the custom of taking off shoes when entering a home in Japan? Would it be acceptable to bring a second pair of shoes to use as my 'indoor' shoes and swap them at the door? (Due to mobility restrictions, this would be a challenge in its own right unless they had a chair right by the door.) I’ve seen that some households have slippers for guests to use but I really need a shoe that encloses around the foot so it doesn't fall off. I feel that a slipper could fall off whilst walking, which would strand me wherever I was stood at the time.

Answer 1

I think there are two very different reasons why shoes are not worn indoors in Japan:

1. Cleanliness. Many Japanese buildings have wooden floors (as opposed to carpets) and shoes will stain them. In these cases, though, shoe covers are just fine. They are extremely common these days, and has now become protocol in a sense.
   In Japan, whenever I hire a maintenance person, or when the gas company worker comes for a routine inspection, etc., they will almost always wear a shoe cover rather than take off their shoes. In fact, most people will prefer shoe covers over bare feet/socks nowadays, as, well, some feet can be smelly. If the building in question has wooden floors, just say you can't take off your shoes for health reasons and ask if you can wear shoe covers instead.

2. To protect the tatami mats. These are vulnerable, so shoes are not really recommended. Some may still let you in with shoe covers, though (the modern ones, made out of synthesized material, are much more robust), but be prepared to be politely rejected. It doesn't hurt to explain and ask in any case.

For historical buildings it could be out of the question though, as the floor can be really old and can't really take the impact from shoes.

Answer 2

Wearing outdoor shoes in Japanese houses is not acceptable in Japan, period. However, wearing a clean pair of indoor shoes would be fine.

That said, this may be less of a problem than you think. In Japanese culture it's quite uncommon to invite people to your home, entertaining guests usually takes place in restaurants and other third spaces. Western style hotels, casual restaurants, most tourist attractions like museums etc do not require you to remove your outdoor shoes. It's really only tatami mats when wearing outdoor shoes is an absolute no-no, so if you avoid tatami seating in traditional Japanese restaurants/teahouses/guest houses and entering the inner sanctums of temples/palaces, you're unlikely to need to take off your shoes at all.

Answer 3

It depends on your definition of "entering someone's home". All the homes there have an entrance hall (the "genkan": https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/gu020004/) - where people take their shoes off. It's also where visitors will interact for short periods of time, away from the weather but without the need to remove outdoor footwear. So if your visits are likely to be short this will probably suffice.

If you do actually need to go inside the rest of the house, are you able to wear "slipper socks" (thick socks with rubber grips on the bottom), that you could carry with you and put on when going inside? You could sit on the step in the genkan to change footwear (if your mobility allows it). Be careful not to touch your indoor footwear on the "outdoor" flooring though, and make sure you don't turn your back on your host during the process as it's considered impolite.

Indoor footwear of any sort is a fairly recent thing; most people would go barefoot or in socks prior to the introduction of slippers. In my experience though it's frowned upon to even wear slippers in a tatami room - people remove slippers and enter in socks or bare feet - so outdoor shoes would be out of the question. Tatami mats are very easily damaged, so with your carbon fibre foot any tatami rooms may sadly be off limits.

Just to compound things, you'll also often find "toilet slippers" that are just to be worn when using the toilet (see this article: https://thejapans.org/2014/07/08/toilet-slippers/).