June 29th 2022
Rice, chopsticks, bamboo and busy markets are words people could associate with East Asia. If you didn’t associate masks with East Asia before, you certainly could now. In Japan masks have steadily become part of the culture since the beginning of the century. This article is more about the mask culture in Japan rather than in other places and doesn’t include opinions on the situation in other East Asian countries.
In times in the past masks have been worn in Japan, as in many countries because of virus epidemics1 or air pollution2. However since the turn of the century3 masks have been worn by people more often than before for a number of reasons.
There are masks to stop the pollen that causes hay fever for a lot of people – pollen that comes from cedar trees from around February to May. People wear masks to protect themselves from flu viruses in the winter. Others wear masks to help keep warm during the winter months. Wearing masks has other advantages too it seems. Some people wear them to protect themselves from the sun in summer. Other people can put a mask on if they haven’t done their make-up. Some people wear them to hide their face for different reasons. One reason is it’s easier to ignore4 someone on the street, maybe a neighbour or someone you know or someone you don’t know. Easier to ignore anyone! Masks can also be a fashion item. You can look cooler people think. Cooler or mysterious. Imagine the beauty or good looks that are hidden under the mask the mask wearer might want you to think.
The Covid pandemic has taken mask wearing to a whole new level though. Masks are often the first thing mentioned5 when people talk about preventing the Covid virus. Ventilation6, social distancing and hand washing are usually further down the list. This is not the situation in many other countries. Ventilation and social distancing are usually mentioned before masks when talking about preventing the spread of viruses in many places around the world.
The fact that masks have been scientifically shown to not be able to stop the spread of the virus much is rarely mentioned. The fact people can’t hear other people so well and need to speak louder or think they need to stand closer to someone when speaking to them isn’t mentioned much either.
Some people do fear the virus. They wear a mask when walking alone outside when no-one is near them. They wear masks in cars. They might wear their masks at home for hours even if they never speak to anyone. It may be fear but a lot of it seems to be social pressrue – peer pressure7. People don’t want to be thought of as selfish8. They feel better wearing a mask than not wearing a mask. Masks make you look like you’re thinking of other people.
It’s interesting to think that people don’t legally9 have to wear masks when entering shops in Japan, which is different to a lot of countries. There are no fines10. The government ‘recommend’ Covid rules but can’t force them on people as governments can do in other countries.
Another fact that is different to many places in the world is that the government sometimes tells people to take off masks but many people don’t want to. School children are told to take them off when going to and returning from school in summer or while doing P.E. classes because of the fear of heatstroke11. Many children still want to wear masks. Writing this in June 2022 (two thousand and twenty two) it is a fact that the people of Japan have recently been told by the government they don’t need to wear masks when outside in places that are not busy in some situations. The government messages are not so easy to undertand though so that may be part of the reason why many people ignore this information.
Masks are now as much an accessory as shoes are. The fact that keeping your face covered with a mask all the time could cause a lot of mental stress in society is rarely talked about when making decisions about mask wearing. It seems you cannot criticise12 masks.
What impact will masks have on communication in society in the future? What impact will it have on the children who have to wear them for years and years at school? In the end masks may do more harm than good13 in society, with that harm being as hidden as people’s faces are now.
4. to ‘ignore’ ~
< Example sentences >
■ Sometimes she says ‘hello’ to us but other times she ignores us.
■ Don’t ignore me when I speak to you. Please look at me!
■ The leader tried to ignore the reporters when he came out of the building.
5. to ‘mention’ ~
< Example sentences >
■ The winner mentioned her coach and her family in her thank you speech.
■ He didn’t mention anything to me about money. I’ll have to ask him about it.
■ Did she mention anything to you about her holiday plans？
6. to ‘ventilate’ ~/ ventilation
< Example sentences >
■ When using the heater in winter it is important to ventilate the room. Please open the window every hour.
■ An extractor fan is a type of fan that you see in a kitchen that is used for ventilating kitchens.
■ We had to ventilate the house by opening the door and all the windows. It hadn’t been lived in for two years.
■ There are no windows in this house so the ventilation is not so good.
10. to ‘fine’ ~ / a ‘fine’ (the adjective ‘fine’ has a different meaning)
<Example sentences>
■ She was fined 50 euro for driving too fast.
■ Don’t park your car there! You’ll get a parking fine.
■ The tennis player was fined a lot of money for breaking the chair with his racket.
12. to ‘criticise’ or to ‘criticize’ ~
< Example sentences >
■ The government were criticised by a lot of people but they didn’t change their policy.
■ That teacher is always criticizing the students’ writing.
■ During the meeting he loves to criticise the young workers but we can never criticise him.
13. to ‘do more harm than good’
< Example sentences >
■ Always staying away from the sun will do you more harm than good.
■ If you take too many supplements it can do more harm than good.
■ Criticising the children every day is doing more harm than good. You should praise them sometimes.
■ My image is a lot of people wear masks in your country. Is that right?
■ Do you have to wear masks at work or at school?
■ What do you think about masks?
■ My image is people don’t wear masks in your country. Is that right?
■ Before Covid did you see people wearing masks？
■ You can buy many mask accessories, for example mask cases. ～
- ‘epidemic’ means the time when many cases of the same disease appear at the same time.
- ‘air pollution’ means dirty or poisonous things such as chemicals in the air.
- ‘turn of the century’ means around the time when the old century finished and the new one started.
- to ‘ignore’ someone means you don’t react to someone. You maybe pretend you can’t see or hear the other person.
- ‘to mention’ something is to talk or write about something, maybe just very quickly.
- ‘ventlation’ means letting new or fresh air into a place to replace the old air.
- ‘peer pressure’ is pressure to do or not do something from people around you in society and often pressure from people of the same age.
- ‘selfish’ means only thinking about yourself and not thinking about the feelings of other people.
- ‘legallly’ or ‘legal’ means relating to the law – the rules of the country.
- a ‘fine’ is money you have to pay to somone, usually the police, when you break a law.
- ‘heatstroke’ is when your body heats up too much from being in heat for too long and it and cause very serious problems, including death.
- to ‘criticise’ something or someone means to say you think there is something wrong with that thing or person. You are saying something negative about that thing or person
- to ‘do more harm than good’ means to cause more bad things to happen than good things.