Speaking of Hollywood, it was a Japanese movie that made me realize how ironclad their “shoes off” rule is, compared to ours.

Where I live, it’s shoes off, but nobody’s going to bat an eye if you forget something inside and keep your shoes on while you go back and get it. Even if your shoes are dirty, as long as you clean up the mess you made when you get back, it’s no big deal. So, it’s shoes off, but it’s not like there’s a special zone by the door where you must switch footwear and you must never wear shoes after that point.

So, what I saw when I watched the Japanese horror movie “The Ring” surprised me. It was a movie where people were running in terror, they were out of their minds in fear, but even in that state, when entering a house / apartment, they’d still take off their shoes. For me, as a westerner, it was really distracting to see someone take the time to observe that shoes on / shoes off rule even in a state of utter panic. But, the reason they did it that way is that for a Japanese audience, it would have completely broken their suspension of disbelief if someone entered a house / apartment and didn’t remove their shoes.