As I watch clip after clip of Muslims with their shoes off, bowing down to Allah in Mosques, I notice when their faces touch the floor, their faces, more often than not, are literally 12-36" from then feet of the guys in the row in front of them. .I imagine that this is NOT always that much of a pleasant experience on the nose. Is this a problem in Mosques? Or do Muslims block this out as they are praying? I mean, those pods gotta reek on some of those guys. Perhaps a Muslim can address this for us . .
ALSO . . what about the Japanese? In their culture, you remove your shoes when going inside. Is foot odor an issue? If so, how is this adressed? Or is it just accepted?
Changing shoes and slippers several times a day does a lot to reduce foot odor. I don’t recall noticing foot odor problems in Japan except the entry halls of large buildings such as restaurants, schools, gyms. When it was hot, the shoes would smell.
Also, consumption of milk products will cause foot odor to increase for some people. The Japanese, traditionally, are not real big milk drinkers. So I bet that’s part of their solution.
How are Muslims for milk consumption, as compared to other religions? Or would that be divided more along cultural lines?
Since most of the people in the world who can digest cow’s milk as adults are in Europe or European descent, I doubt that there is a big dairy industry in most Muslim countries.
But Medditeranean/Middle Eastern/Near Eastern countries DO use milk and milk products like butter, cheese and yogurt. They also consume considerable amounts of goat cheeses like feta.
I suspect, though, that the use of sandals in many of these countries, and removal of shoes several times a day allowing evaporation of sweat, go a long way to reducing foot odor in the above named cultures.
You guys who speculated about frequent shoe removal, wearing of sandals, and frequent washing are correct. Washing the feet 5 times a day before prayers keeps ‘em pretty clean & fresh. But Americans still have to get used to the sight of Muslims washing their feet in preparation for prayer. When they get weirded out by that, I just remind them how in the Gospel Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.
Japanese actually wear shoes indoors quite a bit nowadays, as most buildings are Western (carpeted floors). However, I can say ignatzmouse is right, that usually it’s not a problem. OTOH, it is a subject of jokes and comic strips.
(historical digressment) Traditional Japanese foot wear (for most people) was straw or wooden sandals in hot weather and straw boots in cold, so less foot odor. Many traditional Minka (Japanese farm houses) were half dirt floor, half wooden floor, so shoes were worn in part of the house.
In Hawaii we’re almost always barefoot indoors in our houses. Many of us drive barefoot. My mother was routinely scolded for going to high school barefoot (of course this was back in 1970. And many of us wear slippers (what you call flip-flops or thongs etc.) a lot. And in general we don’t have foot oder problems unless we’ve been in shoes for long periods of time.
For me I wear sandals and my feet never smell. A couple times a year I have to wear shoes and then after awhile I do develop an odor issue.
Also temperature effects it. When I’ve been to Kansas in the winter I can walk around in shoes and socks and don’t have an issue. But if I were to do so here my feet would sweat a lot and a problem would develop.