Spiteful Shoes

"My Shoes are Biting Me!" Gif said after walking for about an hour in her new pair. "It's probably because I forgot to bite them first." She continued with a straight face. "Do you bite your shoes?" She asked me, completely seriously.

I just stared at her for a moment, trying to make sure everything was being translated correctly in my head. Yep, gat means bite and rong-taow means shoe. By this time I had made the connection that in Thai, the phrase for shoes rubbing your heels, probably leading to a blister is, shoe biting your foot.

Finally I responded, "No...I've never bitten my shoes. How do you bite yours? And isn't that dirty?" (Thais generally consider feet, shoes, and anything related very dirty, so the idea that they would put something like that in their mouth, even if it's new, seemed strange.)

"You bite them before you wear them, so they aren't dirty. Like this..." And she held her shoe up like she was looking inside for the size, indicating she would bite the U shape of the heel where was rubbing her heel.

My only guess is that biting the heel would stretch it out a bit, possibly causing it not to rub as much. Other than that, I have no idea where this came from. Another fun, curious, beautiful part of Thailand. :)