Smart shoes, stupid feet

In the book 'Chi Running' by Danny Dreyer, running guru Danny Dreyer talks about buying shoes (p. 186):

"Once I went into Chinatown in San Francisco to buy a pair of T'ai Chi shoes. When I told the Chinese woman behind the counter what I wanted, she took one look at the running shoes I had on and said, 'I don't understand why Americans wear shoes like that...all they do is make your feet stupid."

I'm not in agreement with a number of the technical concepts presented by Danny Dreyer, but this one hits the mark exactly.