then asked him to wait. Akiro waited, nervously twisting his hat

around in his hands. After a few moments the housekeeper

returned.

“The master will see you. Please come this way.”

Akiro entered the house and took his shoes off. There were

several pairs of soft, heelless surippa just inside the door. The word

was originally adapted in the pre-Collapse days from the English

word “slippers, ” a custom that also came from the West and was

easily assimilated into Japan’s “shoes-off-at-the-door” life-style. As

usual, the Japanese took the custom even further, with the use of

seasonal surippa for different times of the year and even for

different rooms. When one entered a home, the street shoes

immediately came off and surippa were donned, to be worn in the

corridors until one came to a room in which the floors were covered

with tatami mats. Then one removed the surippa, for no shoes of

any kind were worn on the woven mats. In homes that were

carpeted, in western fashion, it was customary to ask the individual

homeowner whether surippa were worn on the carpets or only

socks. And if one needed to go to the bathroom, there were usually

several pair of surippa by the door, to be worn in the bathroom only

and in no other room in the house. One simply changed surippa at

the bathroom door and then, when finished, changed back again.

To most westerners, this all seemed terribly complicated and

even a little silly, but there was sound reasoning behind it, as there

was behind most Japanese customs that seemed incomprehensible

to the uninitiated western mind. For one thing, it helped to keep

the house clean and saved wear and tear on the fragile tatami

mats. For another, in Japan’s extremely congested society, it helped

to create the aura of psychological space where physical space was

at a premium. A very small room could subtly be made to seem

larger by the simple expedient of taking a few extra seconds to

remove or put on slippers before crossing it. A small thing, perhaps,

seemingly of no significance to those who came from cultures where

space was taken pretty much for granted, but small things and

insignificant-seeming customs added up to civilization; manners

and traditions that were important in preserving order in a society

where so many people lived so close together.