Face covering in historical Japan and Korea: separate traditions, similar boundaries
Pre-modern Japan and Korea both had customs of women covering their faces in public. These arose from local codes of modesty, class and the separation of the sexes, not from Islamic law — and their forms, meanings and histories are distinct from the niqab.
Women in pre-modern Japan and Korea sometimes covered their faces when travelling or appearing in public. These practices grew out of local customs of modesty, class and the separation of the sexes, not from Islamic law, and their forms, meanings and histories were distinct from the niqab.
Japan: hats, cloths and screens
In Japan, women's face-covering took several forms from the Heian period through the Kamakura period: never appearing bare-faced outdoors, they wore either a deep, wide-angled hat called the ichimegasa, or a kazuki, a cloth placed over the head and drawn forward to conceal the face. Court women could also stay behind blinds, screens, fans or long sleeves rather than show their faces directly.
Later coverings — the watabōshi, a flattened-cotton covering originally worn for winter warmth before it became a dust-shield, and the tsunokakushi, which developed from a dust-shield worn by upper-class women and samurai — both survive today, but only as ceremonial bridal headwear, not everyday dress.
These were never a single uniform rule. Their use varied by period, social position, location and occasion.
Korea: sseugaechima, jang-ot and myeonsa
In the Joseon period, Korean women used several forms of sseugae, a general term for head and face coverings, including the jang-ot, an outer coat adapted for use as a veil, and the sseugaechima, a shawl-like covering draped over the head and shoulders. Under the Confucian custom of naeo-oe (separation of the sexes), women of various social classes covered their faces on longer journeys outside, particularly after dark; upper-class women travelling by day more often used a palanquin instead.
Myeonsa, a fine silk covering reaching from the head down the body, is sometimes described as everyday travelling dress, but the historical record is more specific than that: it was primarily formal and ceremonial wear, distinguished from the neoul used for horseback travel, with palace and civilian versions that differed in material and ornament by social rank.
Why these customs changed
Korean face-covering declined sharply in the early twentieth century. Baehwa Girls' School began replacing coverings with black umbrellas around 1911, a transitional step students gradually dropped altogether; parasols later took over as the everyday outdoor accessory. Change was uneven: rural and conservative communities resisted well into the 1920s and 1930s, and the practice persisted in some rural areas into the 1950s even as it had largely disappeared from cities by the 1930s.
Japan's surviving coverings followed a different path: rather than disappearing, they narrowed into ceremonial dress, worn now only as bridal headwear.
A comparison with limits
There is a real comparison to draw: societies well beyond the Muslim world have developed practices that regulated women's visibility in public. The same point holds for pre-Islamic Arabia. But the comparison has limits.
A Heian-period kazuki, a Joseon jang-ot, and a niqab belong to different religious, legal and social histories, arising for different stated reasons and governed by different rules. Resemblance in appearance does not establish a shared origin, a shared doctrine, or an identical meaning.
Sources. National Diet Library of Japan — history of bridal culture · Kotobank — kaburimono (head coverings) · Korean Culture Portal — sseugaechima · National Institute of Korean History — women's face coverings and naeo-oe · Academy of Korean Studies — myeonsa