Differences : Doors, and How They Open

The other day I was walking up to my apartment. I live on the fourth floor of a walk-up, and although I never notice all the stair climbing until I get to the third floor, by the time I get to my door, I don’t want to climb stairs anymore. On this particular occasion, my hands were full of mass mailings I didn’t want, a grocery bag, and all the things in my purse I had had to pull out while rummaging for my keys. Everything was precariously balanced in my arms while I struggled to put the key in the lock and turn it, and then…it hit me. The thing that had been unsettling me for the last ten months I have been living here. The thing that strikes me as odd every time I come home and which I had not been able to put my finger on.

I realized that every time a similar, hands-totally-full scenario had happened in the States, once I had managed to unlock the door, all I had to do was open it with my shoulder, walk in, dump all the stuff on the nearest surface (and then leave it there for the next five days), and let the door close behind me. However, as the culturally-conditioned instinct was about to take over now, I remembered what had been throwing me off about Japan –

The doors don’t open in. They open out. In order to get into my house with my hands overflowing, I had to not only unlock the door and turn the door knob, but pull the door towards me, prop it open with my elbow before entering, and also struggle out of my shoes before I was able to reach an open surface on which to dump all of my stuff (and then leave it there for the next five days. Or week, since I live alone now, and no one tells me what to do with my junk!).

In America, doors open in, allowing for simpler entry (physically forced if need be, like in the movies) and a generally more welcoming vibe. Oh, hello, let me open this door inwardly, and gesture you into my home! However, here, doors swing out onto the landing (in my case), which makes it awkward any time I need to sign for a package or pay the pizza delivery man, because I have to hold the door open with one hand while receiving the package/pizza with the other, and then either throw it on the floor next to the shoes (gross, and would probably illicit strange glances from Japanese person making said drop-off), or continue to hold heavy package/hot pizza while signing for the package/paying the pizza man.

Now, I understand why the houses do it, because you can’t have doors swinging in when there is a mountain of shoes on the concrete landing that is culturally required to be there, since you absolutely must remove said shoes before making the baby step up onto the actual floor of the house. Always, always shoeless. An inwardly swinging door would get snagged on all the shoes, and then I would have a further awkward situation with the package/pizza delivery man, because then the package/pizza I was receiving wouldn’t fit through the small open space, blocked by the shoes. It’s a bit viciously circular if you think about it.

Also, doors here tend to be heavy and close on their own, while most American doors need a bit of a push to close. This means that no matter whether door swings in or out, you are still having to hold it open with your arm/body during any package/pizza transaction.

So, I get it. Doors are different here. What really surprised me, I suppose, was how I went ten months without being able to name the difference that had been bugging me for so long. That is really the root of this lengthy explanation of door-opening dynamics, though it really is the worst to have to set down a bag on the landing outside your door, far enough away so that the door can still open outward, of course, and then picking it up again once you have the door propped against your hip or shoulder or some other body part. I have yet to think of a good solution to all of this, besides maybe making sure my keys are easier to find.