In Asian households does anyone steal their shoes?

Karma, sense of community, duty, dogma, shame, obedience, fear of consequences, possibly including ill-fitting shoes that smell like someone else’s feet.

@Zaku So its the honor system?

(Well there are also the door ninjas…)

I’m sure it depends on the specific place’s culture/community and the people in question (“Asia” is enormous and includes vast numbers of all of those).

For some it’s honor, for other it’s identity or ideas, for others it’s considerations of the actual risks and consequences, etc.

The mindset that thinks “oh look completely free shoes” is pretty primitive and short-sighted. I could list pages of potential types of bad outcomes of stealing shoes from someone’s doorstep, and the gain isn’t generally worth those.

It is the honor system. You can go to a temple and leave your shoes among hundreds of others and they will be there when you get back. It is wonderful.

At one of the labs where I worked, a massive amount of electromagnetic waves was emitted from the equipment and devices under test. The signals were so strong they would erase your credit cards and magnetic strip train and telephone cards if you were foolish enough to bring them inside. At the entrance to the lab there was a large cardboard box where people would toss in their wallets and other valuables so they would not be damaged. At the end of the day you would dig through the wallets to find your own. There was NEVER a theft or loss. It was wonderful!

So funny, all my Vietnamese friends did that growing up, good memory. Mostly sliders. Don’t remember there ever being an issue with shoe stealing.

In the right neighborhood, they’ll steal them off your feet. I saw like 30 guys mob this one kid in my old neighborhood. When they were done with him, he just had his underwear and 1 sock…

Now, now, let’s stop this misconception. First of all, in most modern Asian household the rule only applies AFTER you get yourself in to the house. Any guest will feel secure enough since the door will be locked after the guest has entered the room to prevent unwanted home invasion (most Asian won’t leave their front door wide open or unlocked). There are some special places like what have been mentioned by @Zaku and @LuckyGuy and in such situation there’s no way to prevent someone from stealing the shoes but such a thing is less likely to happen as it’s generally frowned upon by the society (and the let’s not forget that in traditional places that practice such custom stealing somebody’s shoes will also mean that you’ll receive traditional-style wrath and punishment! You’ll probably get pummeled by the locals before police can get you).

They have these neat little shelves, like a bookshelf, with sliding doors where they keep their shoes when not wearing them. And the shelf is just to the side of the area where shoes are removed and is inside the house, so a thief would have to open the front door to get at the shoes.
(I’ve heard that if you wash your tennis shoes in the washer, some Japanese feel that the washing machine must then be discarded.)

@Unofficial_Member Thanks for clarifying. My question was tongue-in-cheek. I’m not about to start swiping Asians shoes.

This reminds me of when I flew to Japan on JAL the Japanese airline. Instead of making people throw out their liquids that couldn’t get through security like a bottle of perfume that was larger than 3 ounces, they had a big box that they let all passengers put these things in one box, everyone’s stuff together, and then at the other end everyone took their own item. The items were not tagged with your name in any way, it was basically in the honor system, and really very nice that they did this when other airlines didn’t give a crap—too bad you didn’t read the rules and have to throw away your $15 hair spray.

Here where I live the tennis and pickle ball courts have racquets and balls on the honor system, and softball fields have bats and balls. There aren’t employees to keep track of who took the item or put it back.

I doubt it. I know of at least one women who requires people to remove their shoes when they come in. No one’s shoes get stolen.