Some Reflections on the History of Masked Societies in East Asia

The history of face masks has become a very popular topic in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for news reporters and public health experts. In mass media, history is spotlighted to find answers to the question “why do Asians wear masks” despite the lack of scientific evidence—which sociologist Mitsutoshi Horii, the author of Masks and the Japanese マスクと日本人 [Masuku to nihonjin], has been ceaselessly asked by journalists after the coronavirus outbreak (Horii 2020). The answer has been sought mainly in terms of cultural norms. BBC News explained that mask-wearing symbolizes politeness in Asian countries, while The New York Times found the prevalent mask-wearing in Asia over the West from “Asia’s collectivism” (Breeden et al. 2020; Wong 2020). A short commentary written by Chinese scholars at the University of Oxford that appeared in The Lancet followed the cultural norm thesis, claiming that Asia’s societal and cultural paradigm supports mask-usage hygienic practices without any empirical evidence (Feng et al. 2020). Practical reasons are suggested as well. In contrast to the “West,” Asian people have gone through frequent epidemic outbreaks, such as the 2002–2004 SARS crisis, so that they find it more acceptable to cover their faces (Jennings 2020). While sharing the questions addressed by mass media, medical professionals use mask history in more didactic ways. After national and international quarantine authorities reconsidered the role of mass masking in preventing community transmission in the early summer of 2020, they began to cite the long history of mask usage to halt the spread of epidemics—despite a lack of scientific understanding—and suggest that it is still a “simple but powerful tool to help combat” the coronavirus (Issacs 2020; Matuschek et al. 2020; Ike et al. 2021). In this narrative, the Manchurian Plague of 1910–1911 is