Japanese who did not make left and right footwear, even though Zori and Geta were the main footwear for hundreds of years.
Footwear with HANAO-straps is also found in Southeast Asia and Egypt, but the main characteristic of traditional Japanese footwear is that there is no left-right distinction. If a picture is painted on the top surface, the left and right sides may be determined, but there is no difference in shape between left and right.
It is a natural process to make a left and right foot if you are trying to fit the foot. Since the Japanese are very dexterous, it was of course not difficult to make them. But in fact, even today, there are no left and right sides.
Why is it that Japanese footwear with such a long history has no left or right side? This must be because it is a completely different concept from shoes and sandals.
Geta and Setta are developments of flooring and tatami !?
In Japanese homes, bare feet on clean floors and tatami mats is the basic rule. If possible, we would like to walk barefoot outside as well. It would be nice if all the streets were covered with clean floors and tatami mats, but that is difficult. Then I would like to change my way of thinking and only have the floor and tatami under my own feet….
In the West, where people do not take off their shoes when they enter a room, shoes are, so to speak, a “development of the foot” and ultimately should ideally be like a part of the foot. Japanese footwear, so to speak, is a “development of the floor or tatami mat” that is smaller and can be carried between the fingers. If we consider that HANAO-straps is attached to a portable floor or tatami as a carrying strap, it is a satisfactory form to insert HANAO-straps in the middle.
And we think that the barefoot lifestyle that the Japanese insist on is the way to good health.
