Why Do Japanese People Wear Masks? – Balancing Hygiene Measures & Fashion (Tomohisa Sumida)
Japanese people do not feel uncomfortable wearing masks. When they have a cold, they wear a mask, and many people find them indispensable for preventing influenza and hay fever. Nowadays, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, masks have almost become a part of our faces.
However, there is not as much of a habit of wearing masks in Europe and America as there is in Japan, and before the COVID-19 pandemic, many people felt strange about Japanese people walking around with masks on. So, why are we so familiar with masks?
To unravel this, we talked to Tomohisa Sumida, who has been conducting research on the history of masks. He spoke about the acceptance of masks in Japan and the connection to fashion from a historical perspective.
PROFILE
Tomohisa Sumida
Visiting Researcher, Graduate School of Human Relations, Keio University
Left the doctoral program at the University of Tokyo Graduate School (History of Science, Philosophy of Science). Former JSPS Research Fellow (DC1), specially appointed researcher at the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education, Maruzen Publishing, University of Tokyo Press, and currently a Fellow at the Center for Research and Development Strategy of the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
To start with, could you tell us about your research, Sumida?
I'm interested in the relationship between science and society, and have been conducting research under the name of 'social history of environment, life, and science'. For example, I have investigated the organization of the network of researchers in air pollution control.This article is for members only.
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