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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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 Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:59 am Post subject: And now for something completely different: FAN DEATH! |
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Fan death, or the lack thereof, is finally getting the attention it so richly doesn't deserve outside of Korea.
Or, to put it more succinctly, it has been debunked abroad.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/08/26/the-scourge-of-fan-death.htm
OK, maybe this has gotten a mention before, but with all the catastrophes and rumors of catastrophes abroad in the world, I figured we could use a good laugh.
Here is a really cool article from the land of maple syrup.
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Korean wives' tale one of many legends unique to Canadian culture
August 19, 2008
Justin Piercy
Special to the Star
A student was convinced her teacher was going to kill the entire class, thanks to a piece of imported folklore.
Brenna Clarke-Gray was instructing her English as a second language class in an older building at the University of New Brunswick last winter. The temperature was freezing cold outside, but it was steaming hot inside.
"We couldn't open the windows because it was freezing rain," she said. "So I told the class, `Tomorrow we'll have to remember to bring a fan.'"
Her comment upset a Korean student, immediately distressed at the prospect of an electric fan running in a room with closed windows.
"(The student) told us that if you are in a sealed room with an electric fan, it will lower your body temperature and you will die," Clarke-Gray said. "It was so weird to see someone so convinced of something that everyone else in the room thought was so ludicrous. Another person said she slept with the fan on all the time and (the upset student) said `Well, you are very lucky to be alive.'"
After her encounter with "fan death," Clarke-Gray discovered that Canada's rich cultural mosaic includes lots of lost-in-translation folklore � contemporary beliefs and urban legends.
While many are familiar with the "bad luck" associated with walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror, or the meteorological effects of squishing a spider, no other piece of folklore promises such a swift and sudden demise as fan death.
Jennifer Choi, 27, says she doesn't remember when she first heard of fan death, but says that the belief was instilled in her at a very early age.
"It is something I've grown up knowing, just like you don't go swimming until half an hour after you've eaten." Her aunts in Korea would tell her, "Don't point the fan straight at your face; you never know ... you might die."
However, she says that since she's fallen asleep with the fan pointed at her face several times and has lived to tell the tale, she's a non-believer.
"It's the most ridiculous thing ... but people don't sleep with fans in the room when I go to Korea."
A news item from the Seoul Broadcasting System on an apparent "death by fan," (see http://tiny url.com/5p8l29) and this warning from the Korea Consumer Protection Board back up the claims of Clarke-Gray's student: "Doors should be left open when sleeping with the electric fan or air conditioner turned on. If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes bodies to lose water and hypothermia."
It continues, "From 2003-2005, a total of 20 cases were reported ... involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping."
In fact, fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timers so people don't fall asleep with the fan running all night.
Jini Kim is a 22-year-old computer science student at the University of Toronto. The Korean-Canadian has lived in Toronto for about seven years and believes the fan is not totally to blame in the deaths associated with fan death.
"I've heard that the death is not just because of the fan alone," she says. "The people who died had heart problems or they were drunk. The actual cause of the death was low temperature and stuff."
University of Manitoba thermophysiologist Dr. Gord Giesbrecht calls the rationale for fan death "bizarre" and "impossible," since science proves the electric fan innocent of all charges levied against it.
"With (asphyxiation), you have a sealed room and you move the air around ... how will you suck (the air) out while it's sealed? An electric fan doesn't consume oxygen. This is fuelled by electricity, and you are just moving air around � it's impossible." |
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/480793
Now let's see, if you hermetically seal the room and put a sealed suction pump through the wall, and turn it on....
Or, if you sleep in the nude on a water bed filled with ice after drinking a liter of soju, turn on the air conditioner full blast and hang a block of dry ice in front of your fan during the winter....
Think I'm beating a dead horse, eh?
The Korean Consumer Protection Board actually has a warning about the dangers of fan death on its website, no surprise, in English!
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Beware of Summer Hazards!
The Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB) issued a consumer safety alert after analyzing injury data related to summer accidents collected for the past three years through its Consumer Injury Surveillance System (CISS).
The top five recurring accidents are ▲ asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners ▲ children�s asphyxiation inside cars ▲ explosions inside cars ▲ air conditioner explosions and ▲ sanitary accidents at home.
■ Doors should be left open when sleeping with the electric fan or air conditioner turned on
If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes bodies to lose water and hypothermia. If directly in contact with a fan, this could lead to death from increase of carbon dioxide saturation concentration and decrease of oxygen concentration. The risks are higher for the elderly and patients with respiratory problems. [/size]
From 2003~2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated and doors should be left open. |
http://english.cpb.or.kr/user/bbs/code02_detail.php?av_jbno=2006071800002
Gee, thanks for the warning, Korea!
And I'll be careful about those open orange juice containers in hot cars, too. (Not.)
Let's see, if they're open, how can they explode?
I think there's a greater danger of my head exploding from trying to wrap itself around such a paradox. Do you think maybe that's what Korea is really trying to do, drive all us expats insane? |
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I_Am_The_Kiwi
Joined: 10 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:31 am Post subject: |
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ahh fandeath.....always a good one to make fun of.
I posed the questions to my HS kids not so long ago.
about 40% believed it completely.
I then told them that if all 40 of them are in the class now with the doors and windows shut and the ceiling fans on why are we not dying....i got the witty response that were not asleep so its not the same.
most are smart enough to know its complete bullshite... |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: Re: And now for something completely different: FAN DEATH! |
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To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set
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I don't know why, but this reminded me of a James Bond type thing where someone sticks a broom stick in the handles of a sauna room trapping our hero in that intense heat. I can just see a Korean version of a James Bond movie where the villain enters the house, sticks some chewing gum on the timer of a fan so it doesn't move and exits through a window which he closes on the way out. The audience gasps. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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Good one, flakfizer. I hadn't noticed the "timers should be set" advice. I wonder how long is the limit?
The one I like is:
and doors should be left open.
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From 2003~2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated and doors should be left open. |
http://english.cpb.or.kr/user/bbs/code02_detail.php?av_jbno=2006071800002
I guess this is so you can help fight global warming while you sleep.
I think calling advice like this an "old wives tale" does not do Korea justice.
This is advice from their federal government!
Good grief, Korea! |
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bangbayed
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Location: Seoul
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joshuahirtle27
Joined: 23 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| All I have to say is I didn't know classrooms were airtight enough that the population within the class could exhaust the air supply. Maybe Korean schools don't have ventilation systems. That would explain a lot. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| any "news" of fan death this summer? |
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OnTheOtherSide
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Fan death is an alibi to save face when someone dies disgracefully, like drug OD, suicide, etc. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| For those who have been here for awhile, have you noticed how much of a drop-off there's been in reporting about fan death? I mean, I seem to recall every year there'd be two or three. Nowadays, nadda. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| OnTheOtherSide wrote: |
| Fan death is an alibi to save face when someone dies disgracefully, like drug OD, suicide, etc. |
well then: when are the korean children let in on the secret, because it's not hard to find korean students who BELIEVE it, who even cite t.v. news for having said so |
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Jane
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| OnTheOtherSide wrote: |
| Fan death is an alibi to save face when someone dies disgracefully, like drug OD, suicide, etc. |
...and domestic abuse (or death, rather).
By the way, I like this excerpt from the Encyclopediadramtica site referenced above:
"The following are notable theories by South Korean professionals, including medical experts, as to how fans cause death. This may account for why South Korean college degrees don't count for shit in America, although many South Koreans counter by saying that Americans have large, piggy eyes."
I'm still laughin'  |
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fermentation
Joined: 22 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| For those who have been here for awhile, have you noticed how much of a drop-off there's been in reporting about fan death? I mean, I seem to recall every year there'd be two or three. Nowadays, nadda. |
I saw a newspaper article a few months back. But less people seem to believe it. I did a search on Naver and came across a site that refuted fan death and advocates for responsible media coverage. Impressive. |
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PamPhi
Joined: 28 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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It has been debunked here too, but much like the moon landings in 1969 and the proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq the viewing public usually swallows whatever it is that the government dishes out as facts
NOTE: I do not necessarily think that the moon landings were faked, but it is possible given the climate of the time ( russians beating us in the other two space races - first object and first person in space) |
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Snake Doctor
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| For those who have been here for awhile, have you noticed how much of a drop-off there's been in reporting about fan death? I mean, I seem to recall every year there'd be two or three. Nowadays, nadda. |
Back in -96, fan death was word-of-mouth and something we used to laugh about when we went out drinking with our buddies. Now it's all over the internet. The times, they are a changin'  |
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