Fan Death is
"the belief that if someone is sleeping in a sealed room (windows and doors are closed) with an electric fan on, they could die." The theory is that either hypothermia will get you, or the fan breeze will somehow form a vacuum around your mouth and suffocate you. Apparently many people in Korea believe this is true. Or at least, this is what Robin, the creator of
fandeath.net, has concluded after living in Korea for five years. He writes:
When I first heard about fan death, I discussed it with my Korean friends and students. I was the foreign skeptic and they were the loyal natives. I was shocked at how powerful their belief was and at the lack of critical thinking about the issue. All you have to do is bring up the issue of fan death with a Korean and it would be difficult to get them to accept the fact that fan death might not be true. Especially when talking to a foreigner, they are more likely to defend their cultural belief than question it. So, unable to have a semi-neutral discussion, I turned to the internet. After checking the internet for more information about fan death, I became greatly frustrated. I could not find any detailed information about fan death. So, I decided to make this site to encourage others to tell their stories and share their knowledge about the issue.
Robin's site includes info about some other unusual Korean beliefs, such as tongue- cutting, which is the theory that if you cut the frenulum (the tissue linking the tongue to the floor of the mouth)
"your tongue will be more flexible and be able to pronounce those difficult English sounds." Robin says that for this reason tongue surgery is quite popular in Korea.
Comments
Since your body generates heat, the air near you gets hotter than the air in the rest of the room (regardless of the ambient temperature). Unless you're sleeping outdoors, in the absence of a fan this heat-build-up effect slows down cooling. A fan moves new (ambient temp) air next to you, so your body can more efficiently give up its heat.
I figured you were kidding, but it seems sad that anyone could actually believe such a thing, so that it would have to be busted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4347443.stm
http://www.arirangtv.com/korean/news/news_body.asp?news_no=57275&title=Life
And here's "an objective view about Korean culture".
http://www.koreainfonet.com/
"Dog meat dispute resurfaces
Submitted by Admin on Sun, 2005-03-13 23:34.
A government decision to impose strict regulations on processing and selling dog meat has reignited an old controversy over the traditional Koreans' practice of eating dog meat.
The Cabinet last Wednesday decided to draft measures that prohibit any brutal slaughtering of dogs and set hygiene guidelines on the processing and sale of dog meat."
"Volunteers hold online campaign for correct info about Korea
Submitted by Admin on Wed, 2005-03-09 00:08.
About 15,000 members of the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), backed by 3,000 foreign members, have waged an online campaign to help foreigners have a better understanding of Korea."
I guess 18,000 people was not enough...
"Daily Quote
"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out
Then the oldest member of the class spoke up though, and said that back during the war, when food was very scarce, some people did eat dogs.
I guess in a famine, most of us would eat dogs if necessary, but in my students' opinion, dog meat is not a part of traditional Korean cuisine.
Being a Korean myself I have grown reading abundant articles about 'fan death' on newspapers and I always have been warned not to leave the fan on while sleeping.
As I have read the posts here two things have struck my mind: cot death and the sensation of suffocation when you face strong wind.
No one seem to have clear scientific explanation to this mysterious death that happens lots of infants all around the world yet it is commonly accepted cause of death among yuong children. Is this a cultural myth or unsolved mystery thrashed into a categorisation. Cot death was virtually unheard of in Korean society until I learned it in England.
I have been told so called 'fan death' has something to do with the strong wind. Sometimes you feel this sens of suffocation at sea sidd on a windy day or on high in the mountain. I have felt this more than often in such places and thought I was breathless for a while.
The electric fans come in various speeds. I have never seen such fast speed fans here in England that I saw back in Korea (I have never seen any decent fans either in England) but the strongest wind speed on most Korean made can make you feel nearly breathless as seaside or mountain top wind, with youur face close to the fan.
I don't know if this could be the case and I am not intending to make any conclusion but if that is coupled with snoring and breathing stop symptoms many people suffer from, I think it could be deadly. I have been told that he snorings make air passage in the throat narrower than normal and it cause intermittent stops in breathing.
The advice given to Koreans was not exactly not to leave the fans on but to avoid strong high wind speed and direct and close contact with face while asleep.
Our body constantly keeps our body temperature through perspiration in warmer-than-body condition. The electric fan could speed up this process.
Anyhow, I lived in Korea for six years and have come into contact with both fan death and tongue cutting. In the first case, I was working for a summer camp at a university which will remain nameless. Now, this was a boarding camp, and the kids wre lodged in the university's dorm rooms, which were not very well-ventilated even with the windows open. In addition, this was at the height of the summer, and even at night, the temperatures in the room approached 35 degrees celsius. What's more -- none of the students were provided with fans in their rooms, or even allowed to bring their own. There was a lot of speculaton amongst the teachers as to why the studens were not allowed even the minimal comfort of having an electric fan in their rooms, and we had pretty much agreed that it was probably due to the possibility of a fire hazard -- maybe someone was afraid that one of the fans would be left on and catch something on fire. However, I had the opportunity to speak with the camp director (a professor at the university), and I asked him why the students were not allowed fans in their rooms. His answer: fan death. Needless to say, I was floored. This was the first time I had ever heard the idea that a fan could kill you, and to hear such obious nonsense coming from a man with a Ph.D was so utterly unbelievable to me that I must have been standing thre with my mouth wide open. I tried to find out if he was joking, but nope... he was apparently completely serious.
On the bright side, though, that was pretty much the only encounter I had with fan death in my six years in Korea, so maybe the belief is dying out somewhat, and people like my 'educated' camp administrator will soon see how ludicrous they seem to the rest of us.
As to the tongue cutting thing... Yes, several of my students underwent this procedure. One of my students, who missed a week of class due to having his frenulum cut, came to school the next week, still obviously in a bit of pain. I asked him why he had been gone (and missed a quiz I had given the previous week) and he told me he had gotten his tongue clipped. My obvious thought at that time was "Well, gee... if you want to speak English more fluently, come to class and practice." In order to spare his feelings, however, I just nodded and let him schedule a make-up quiz.
The fan is not the cause of death as they have said, but as in cot death cases it is not the fan that actually cause the death but contributory factors that the fan create to the cuase of death.
It is quite comparable to cot death case in which cot is not the direct cause of death but conribute to increase of temperature or suffocation of children as people in medical circle suspects.
I'm a Korean. I've my roommate as a French.
Since he bought a new fan in his room this summer, I'm anxious about him.
He doesn't care of my warning, & he argues that there's no risk to run it in closed room.
I don't know if he's using the fan on closing all the windows or not at night. Just in day time, I observe that he lets widely windows open.
I wonder if I find him in trouble on his bed in next morning.
Regularly each summer, I've heard of "fan deads" from daily news. They are not found other health problem on them, but have one strong common point among them. Just they kept their fan in closed room & they slept calmly inside.
You may unbelieve or laugh on our belief, coz while you are googling, no research is shown on net. Then, try to test by yourself. I'm not sure if you can still laugh next morning.
By the way, I searched articles about "ventilation". But all I found is :
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventilation
Try to use altavista to translate its german language on: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
If 4,5 milions of people are convinced to believe it, there're surely reason.
Just be careful. Don't take any risk.
matter. Many people think Korean stupid but we think different.
Summer time come many old people die many foolish people die. We all must understand Fan death very dangerous.
Some people no good like to go love hotel do not have good morals. Foreigners bring bad morals to Korea. We Koreans are good people. They bring prostitute into room. They don't care about fan death but death by fan is real.
Many intelligent doctors are Korean they know about Fan death. You had better listen to them. Fan death is nothing to fool arround with.
Fan death can kill you choose live treasure your life be careful of fan.
Fan death isn't real. It just doesn't make any sense. The fact that 4.5 million Koreans believe it doesn't make it real, just as the fact that millions of Americans believe that touching toads gives you warts doesn't make that real. Nor does the fact that until just a few years ago, millions of Americans thought getting a sun tan was healthy make that real either.
The plain fact is that millions of people -- Korean, American, whatever -- can be wrong. So whatever you do, don't cite that "but everybody believes it" and think you've proven anything. When you say, "But everybody knows," you are not saying, "It is proven."
If you hold your tounge on the roof of your mouth whilst doing pilates, or weight lifting, it is easier to maintain balance.
Maybe that response is something similar to the indian thing of being able to roll your tounge back?
So drop back a bunch of years, fans are noisy, electricity (in Korea) is expensive. Sprog wants fan on to keep cool, parent doesn't want noise and/or expense. Parent tellse sprog that fans while sleeping are dangerous. A legend is born.