Quote Originally Posted by Deebunked View Post
Your wife is only partially correct.

In Hong Kong it really began in 2002 with SARS and awareness of not spreading infection to others, not a political myth or anything else but a fact. Its effectiveness I highly doubt, but it's why they do it.

Same in other Asian countries I travelled extensively in like China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and also Hong Kong.

For a long time I thought they looked rude until I had it explained to me properly over there.
My wife informs me that while the wearing of face masks in Hong Kong may have started in 2002 because of SARS they were certainly being worn in October 2016 because of pollution.