Kbg wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:13 pm
I kind of hope we will become a little more Asian with regard to masking when sick (flu/colds).
I can't remember if someone on this forum posted this article a while back (if so, my bad), but I was interested to learn recently that one of the big reasons why mask-wearing became so common in East Asian countries was due to the historical influence of Taoism:
The underlying reason could be philosophical: All three countries [Japan, China, and Korea] have been broadly influenced by Taoism and the health precepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in which breath and breathing are seen as a central element in good health. “‘Qi’ is a central concept in Chinese cosmology—and thereby physiology—generally having to do with energy and vapor,” explains Michelle M. Ching, a board certified practitioner of acupuncture and herbal medicine based in Los Angeles. “Qi has numerous meanings in Chinese including ‘air’ [kong qi], ‘atmosphere’ [qi fen], ‘odor’ [qi wei], which is perhaps another reason masks are so necessary in China!, ‘strength’ [li qi] and ‘pathogen’ [xie qi]. When bodily qi is depleted, or its movement deranged, pain and disease develop. So breathing is critical in order to maintain good qi in the body.”
Meanwhile, the intake of “feng,” or noxious wind, is considered the most potent and common of TCM’s “Six External Causes” of disease. “Think about wind,” says Ching. “It can blow open doors, blow cool air off a body of water to the land surrounding it, or fire from one part of the forest to another. The door analogy relates to TCM’s understanding of how exposure to wind can weaken our body’s defenses.”(Perhaps as a permutation of these ideas, East Asia has numerous ancillary superstitions about air and wind, the most notable of which is a deathly fear of sleeping in rooms with running electric fans, a belief that has its epicenter in Korea, where “fan death” phobia remains rampant even today.)
The bottom line is that in East Asia, the predilection toward using face-coverings to prevent exposure to bad air is something that predates the germ theory of disease, and extends into the very foundations of East Asian culture. In recent years, however, mask-wearing has become rooted in new and increasingly postmodern rationales.
https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-o ... in-public/
I'm all in favor of America adopting a permanent custom of expecting sick people (those with fevers, coughs, etc.) to wear masks in public if they can't stay home, but the idea that
everyone has to wear them -- including healthy people who feel perfectly fine -- seems like extreme overkill to me since masks are more for protecting others, not yourself.