Slippers

~A long time ago, I wrote about the Japanese custom of wearing slippers at work. To reiterate, most Japanese office workers do not wear shoes in their work areas, instead leaving their shoes in designated cabinets and donning soft slippers for indoor work. My school follows this rule as well, and I love it. It's so much more comfortable than wearing shoes all day, or only socks.

This custom is of particular value to me, because I spend half my day running around and playing games with young children. However, this does put a lot of wear and tear on the slippers I use. For example, here's a picture of my most recent pair:

^ They've seen better days, haven't they? It gets worse:

^ The bottom of my poor, poor slippers. As the Japanese would say, "boroboro!" (junk).

Last week I finally got around to replacing the "boroboro" slippers. As you would expect, slipper sales are big business in Japan. Everyone owns multiple sets of slippers: one set for home, one for work, family sets for use in the restroom, a set for light outdoor wear, and so forth.

Most supermarkets have an entire aisle dedicated to slippers, but I've found that shopping for them is difficult. This is because the average Japanese person is significantly smaller than the average American. I'm not very tall, but even so, I have to buy size LL (double-large) slippers! I don't think I've bought any other "L" size clothing in my entire life.

^ The new slippers I'm currently using. They cost me around five bucks. In a couple of months, they'll doubtless end up "boroboro" like their predecessors.

^ A closeup of the emblem on the slippers, which has a rooster and the words "BE NATURAL". I wanted the slippers that said "Nature Deity", but they didn't have any in my inordinately large size.

I enjoy being able to wear slippers in the workplace, so this is one Japanese custom that I'd like to import back to the U.S. ~Oyasumi!