The Korean Way (4): shoes off!

The sneakers of the young conscript riot policemen are left outside of the reinforced bus they sit in, outside of the American military base of Yongsan, in the middle of Seoul. Inside the bus they spend their time wriggling their toes and reading, until the next riot or demonstration or protest. There are quite a lot of these in South Korea, and both the police and the protestants have been accused of violence. Those who die tend to be the people not in uniform, though. Otherwise, at least off the street, Koreans wear slippers, most of the time. That is the normal solution, or barefoot (with socks, of course). Never with outdoor shoes indoors, you leave them at the entrance of peoples apartments and houses. You also remove them before stepping up on the platform in the restaurant to have lunch at the low table.
For Swedes this is no big change compared to home; we do the same thing in Sweden when entering peoples homes, and to parties people often bring indoor shoes with them. I think it has a lot to do with climate and the messiness of Swedish farms, fields and cowsheds. Who wants to drag manure in on the kitchen floor? You do it once, maximum, then the person who cleans the floor locks you outside...
Workers here in Korea always slip out of their shoes, delivery men as well, before entering. In Korea, since everything has to go fast, and you're always carrying something in your hands, nobody bothers to tie their shoelaces. They slip out of and into their shoes without missing a step. And all the shoes are terribly trodden down at the heels, usually totally destroyed. This is different from Sweden, where most worker have protective shoes with steel caps, and they keep them on.
Anyway, removing shoes shows respect for the host/hostess and allows you to relax. Even when we lived in New York we tried to uphold the habit, and shuddered when we had guests with spikes walking our wooden floors...
Korean, Swedes and Japanese share this no-shoes-indoors tradition, as do (I believe) parts of China, Southeast Asia and some Muslim countries. Do you know more about this issue, please feel free to comment.