Shoes.

In Korea, it is a common practice that when you enter a house, restaurant, apartment, school etc, you take off your shoes. At my school, I take off my shoes everyday. I wear "inside" slipper-type-shoes. (B you would die!) Therefore, there really is no point in wearing cute shoes to work!

When I took a trip one weekend and tied my shoes to the outside of my backpack, I got countless stares. One woman was trying to give me a bag to put my shoes in. Another man stared at my shoes for minutes on end with a look of complete confusion on his face. One guy came on the train, saw my shoes, laughed and shook his head at me, then pointed his umbrella at my shoes, then laughed again, then said, "Have a nice day!" Mal and I died laughing.

When I first arrived, I kept thinking, why do I have to take off my shoes? This seems so weird. We don't do that in the US of A. Slowly but surely it is making sense to me. If you think about it, your shoes are SO dirty. I mean SO. They go with you everywhere: the subway, public buildings, public bathrooms, restaurants--and then we wear those same shoes in our abodes!! No wonder my school and my apartment are so clean. I think I like the 'no outside shoes, inside' approach.