The social norm around mask use in Japan and many other East Asian countries is pretty great—you put one on if you feel under the weather or want to be considerate of others in cold/flu season, and there's no stigma or political valence attached to wearing or not wearing them.
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Replying to @Pinboard
Just to clarify, given I’ve lived in SE Asia and Asia more generally for 15 years, Japan aside, you want to run me through the countries where this is actually a social norm pre-Covid (unrelated to specific pollution concerns)?
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Replying to @Pinboard
Do they? Really? Vietnam has no such norm. One uses masks as a way to identify visitors usually from China. Taiwan & HK again maybe but I don’t notice a lot of masks in HK pre Covid again except for mainlanders. My point- this is a lazy cliche and isn’t really true.
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Replying to @tax_oz
I observed it firsthand in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan years before the pandemic, so if it's a cliche, it's at least independently derived.
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Replying to @Pinboard
Of course you did. I’ve said “exclude Japan”. We all agree on that. But it’s untrue as a societal norm in HK - based on actually living there. Taiwan maybe. Vietnam - which you claimed. Untrue. So really it’s Japan and maybe Taiwan.
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Going to have to ask the refs to rule on Hong Kong since I spent many months there and definitely observed seasonal mask wearing.
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