Shoes

Imagine that you are about to enter one of Kyoto's magnificent temples. All seems quiet and serene outside, but you would like to know how crowded it is likely to be inside. The solution? Look at the shoes. Everyone who enters a temple has to remove their shoes and place them by the entrance, either on the ground outside or in special racks provided for that purpose. If you want to know how many people are already inside, just count the pairs of shoes!

The same rule of thumb applies to parties. When you are invited to a party at someone's house, its easy to tell how many guests have arrived ahead of you:

                                                                                                                  Photo credit: Madge Baker

Anywhere were there is transition to a designated 'indoor' space, you will find a place for shoes to be placed. Sometimes -- as at the school festival last weekend -- this transition point gets a bit crazy. And sometimes your shoes are so far away in no man's land that you have to leap over rows of other shoes to get to them.

And sometimes shoes give you more information that just how many people are inside. When we enter the house where Sage's cello lesson takes place, there is usually a 5-year-old boy finishing up his lesson ahead of Sage. We know its him even before we go into the lesson room because we can see his tiny shoes in the hallway outside. And we know if he is there just with his mother, or with his mother and his grandmother, again by looking at the shoes.