阿多福風邪

otahuku kaze

mumps

Hiro brought this up this morning, said there was an out break in Vancouver. I had never heard the Japanese for it, so I looked it up.

otahuku refers to one of the masks traditionally used in Noh (and now omnipresent as a Japanese souvenir) of a young woman's face with very plump cheeks. Since one of the symptoms of mumps is a swelling of the submaxillary lymph glands and of the cheeks, the Japanese name makes a lot of visual sense. Of course, kaze can refer to any viral infection, and by itself can mean a cold or influenza.