The Physical School - The Genkan

Heading Inside - Shoes and more Shoes

"Man, these slippers are cutting off my circulation..." sasquatch gaijin

For more posts similar to this one, see Being in a Japanese School - Physically

If you forget to bring a pair of shoes or sandals to change into when you get to school, don't worry, there are some super small slippers that you can use. They reach about to the beginning of the heel on my size 10 feet. Brutally uncomfortable. Anyway, let's head inside.

The Front Gate and The Wall

"All in All You're Just Another Brick in the Wall...."
Notice the Giant Clock

Almost every school has a gate that can be closed. This is definitely not uncommon in the West, but in Japan, the gates are usually not just gates to keep people from parking or driving into restricted areas, it’s part of a damn fortress. The gate is attached to a 6-8+ foot high brick, stone or concrete wall (the first picture in this post). No matter what the size of the campus is, the wall surrounds it entirely. One of my schools was at least 5 acres and completely surrounded with an approximately 8 foot high wall. It was pretty impressive. Obviously, this part of the school is influenced from Japan’s past ‘Castle Culture.’ 

"The Gate"

Once you get past the front gate, where the morning aisatsu usually takes place,  you will somehow or another be funneled towards……

          

The Foyer (Genkan)

Genkan Straight Ahead

This is where you perform THE most basic of all Japanese rituals, changing your shoes. There’s usually one genkan for the teachers, and a separate one for the students. There is nothing special about the genkan besides the massive number of shoes and shoe boxes (lockers). It's difficult to really imagine the sheer volume of shoes that can be found all over the school. They are everywhere!

            

The Shoes Lockers (Boxes)

And since we’re on the subject of shoes, let me take this opportunity to explain a bit about the ‘shoes culture’ at a Japanese school.  

The School Shoes Culture

First of all, one of the questions that I get from Japanese teachers all the time is ‘What do you call these in English?’ When it comes to these shoe boxes or whatever you want to call them however, I always kindly remind the Japanese that we don’t have these things in America, so we don’t have a word for it. 

What do you call this monstrosity?

Most students have at least four pairs of shoes stored somewhere at the school at any one time. Some have five: going to and from school shoes, inside the school shoes, outdoor PE shoes, gymnasium shoes, and specialized sport shoes (e.g. soccer boots, baseball spikes, etc.). Yep, teachers also have an assortment of shoes gathered at the school. You can walk around the school and find an obnoxious number of shoes gathered together in random places. Like this................notice how they are all facing the same way?

Random Shoe Meeting

There is a very traditional way to place your shoes in Japan. Typically, you take them off and place them pointing away from the entrance, pointing out so to speak. It's the custom and considered proper and polite. Obviously, random shoe riots like above don't give a shirt about customs.

Do you have a question about Japan or a topic that you are interested in that you haven't found on this blog? If so, please tell me about it in a comment. I will get a post up about it as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!!