Editing Customs of Jhelum (section)

== Homes and Hospitality ==

=== Remove Your Shoes ===

Shoes are commonly left at the entrance of homes, shrines, and certain private rooms. A servant may indicate where they should be placed.

Walking across a fine carpet in dusty street sandals is a calculated insult—or evidence that the visitor was raised by goats.

=== A Guest Must Be Fed ===

A host offers a guest water and at least a little food before asking serious questions. Even an enemy who has formally accepted hospitality is entitled to these courtesies.

Violence beneath a host's roof is disgraceful. This protection traditionally lasts until the guest has departed and passed beyond the light of the doorway.

Ambushing the guest in the next alley is considered treacherous, but technically avoids insulting the household.

=== Do Not Refuse the First Cup ===

A guest should accept at least a taste of whatever is offered. Refusing a drink untouched suggests that the host is unclean or suspected of poisoning it.

A person who cannot or does not wish to drink may touch the cup to the lips without swallowing. Hosts who insist beyond that point are behaving badly—or are, in fact, attempting to administer poison.

=== Water Is Freely Given ===

Refusing drinking water to a traveler is contemptible. Temples, guilds, merchants, and wealthy households maintain fountains and large clay water jars in public places.

A cup is often chained beside the jar. Stealing such a cup is regarded as almost unbelievably mean, even among thieves.

=== Never Step Over Food, Weapons, or People ===

People walk around food laid upon the floor rather than stepping across it. The same courtesy is extended to anyone sleeping or sitting upon the ground.

Stepping over a weapon insults its owner. Stepping over food insults the household. Stepping over a person invites an immediate quarrel.