Before “burkinis” made global headlines, there was China’s “facekini.”

The colorful, full-face mask is still around, on view at crowded Chinese beaches this summer and for sale online.

It came onto the radar of Western news organizations in the summer of 2012. The New York Times published a front-page story by Dan Levin on the phenomenon, with striking photographs from the coastal town of Qingdao by Sim Chi Yin.

In recent days, people on Twitter and other social media platforms have mocked the banning of burkinis by dozens of French beachside towns by asking what French officials would do if Chinese beachgoers showed up wearing facekinis. The controversy in France over the banning of the burkini, popular with some Muslim women, by at least 30 French municipalities, many on the Riviera, has continued to rage, and a French high court last Friday overturned one town’s ban.