What do Filipinos do?

There are some countries where I hear conflicting messages about whether the custom is to remove shoes or keep them on. The Philippines is one of those countries.

Some Filipinos say that it is their custom to always remove shoes when entering homes. A lot of etiquette guides say this what you have to do. Yet a lot of Filipinos are adamant that they do not normally take their shoes off in their homes.

I visited a guy once who had a Filipino wife. The couple were wearing slippers, but they did not ask me or my friends to remove our shoes. That incident does not tell me much.

I suspect a regional variation is at work. The Philippines is made up of many islands and has ethnic and religious divisions. Some Filipinos look like the Chinese, others look like Pacific islanders. Most interestingly, there is a big Hispanic influence on the Philipines.

I think Filipinos are a cool people- they like fried food, they like wearing flip flops and a lot of them also like extreme heavy metal.