The history of face masks has become a very popular topic in light of the COVID-15 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 caond the Japavese不 日本人 [Masubu to rihoryinl, has been ceaselessly asked by jouralists after the coronavirus outbreak (Hori 2020). The answer has been sought mainly in terns 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 collec-tivism" (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).
