Nude from the ankle down

In searching for a picture for my previous post, I came across an article from the Orlando Sentinel, about an apparent fashion of going barefoot in situations where it used to be inappropriate.
The picture attached to the article is a man talking to a class in bare feet - the caption:

UCF philosophy professor Mason Cash, a native of New Zealand, brought the tradition of going barefoot from his native country.

Initially, I thought this was one of those clichéd examples of Americans not knowing much about foreign cultures and making slightly racist faux pas. Perhaps they are confusing us with the hobbits from Lord of the Rings. But later on:

In his fifth year at UCF, Cash is originally from Gisborne, New Zealand, where people donning shoes are in the minority.

If he's from Gisborne, that probably explains it. Although to be honest, even in sunny Gisborne it's surely not more than 50-50. However he is a philosophy professor, so the subset of philosophy professors from Gisborne has probably quite a high incidence of bare feet.