Attend any summer festival in Japan and within the stalls selling delicious yakisoba (fried noodles), kakigori (flavored shaved ice) and yakitori (various meats on skewers), you’ll find a booth selling children’s masks. These masks are available in various characters from Disney to popular Japanese cartoons to traditional (Hyottoko, the funny-faced mythical spirit). Like a Disneyland hat, they are mostly impulse buys that a festival-goer buys to wear for a few hours. Masks in general are popular with Japanese (most recently surgical masks for people with even slight colds). Why wear it on the side of your head? Because children’s masks are too small for adults!