It may feel quite strange when you visit your Korean friend’s house and see them taking off their shoes. You could also easily notice that Korean homes are designed to place shoe racks at the entrance as most Koreans do not wear shoes at home. Even at school, students have to change their shoes to slippers or indoor shoes to enter the school building!
In contrary to western countries, where many homes use fireplaces to heat up the room, Korea has an unique heating system, ondol, which influenced the Korean culture to a lifestyle of sitting on the floor. As Koreans used floor to eat, sleep, and spend general leisure time, it became customary to take off shoes indoors to maintain the floor nice and clean.
Even nowadays, many people spread blankets on the floor to sleep on. It is also common to see people sitting on the floor with their legs folded and eat their meal on a low table.
In winter, the charm of ondol is maximized. You can spend cold winters much warmer by sleeping on Korean ondol floors. That’s why you can see many Koreans wearing t-shirts and shorts at home even in the cold winter season. We recommend you to spend a night at a Korean traditional home or pension house to truly experience the ondol culture! :)
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