Exception to the Rule

In Korean schools, and many businesses and homes, you take off your shoes and put on slippers or special indoor shoes. If you read some of my previous posts, you know that when we first came I bought a pair of TOMS to wear in school. Because of the vacation, however, and the fact that I am teaching at John's school, I decided to leave my school shoes at his school. Which means, when I arrived at my school this morning, I had no personal school shoes to wear! There is no one in my school right now and I am sitting for half a day all alone in the English classroom (they are doing construction on my teacher's office) and no one would notice if I didn't have on school slippers. My thought process went something like this:
"My shoes that I am wearing are already so warm, I don't really want to take them off. Yesterday was so cold, if I put on the school slippers, my feet are sure to be frozen in 10 seconds. There is no one around, no one will notice if I just wear my normal shoes in the school!"

And then it hit me, how absolutely American I was being. I was the exception to the rule "no shoes in school". Everyone who comes in from students to teachers, to parents wears slippers, but I don't have to? Upon realizing this, I was shocked at myself for being so self-centered. "I am here", I chided myself, "to learn about the culture, the people, and to represent the US. How can I do that if I don't respect the culture?"

Having identified that wearing the school slippers would honor Korean culture and my Korean co-workers I gladly slipped of my shoes and put on the generic school slippers. What a joy to be doing something so tangibly honoring, yet so completely simple as not wearing my shoes in school :)