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check it out http://www.thestar.com/article/480793

Urban legend: That fan could be the death of you
NORTH AMERICAN WIVES' TALES


While fan death may seem laughable to North Americans, we do have our own unscientific gems of folklore.

Do Pies Count?: The old saying goes "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," but it's been widely established that apples have not been scientifically proven to decrease the chance of falling out of a tree and breaking your arm.

Sorry "Sis": Can't wait for the ultrasound? Hang a needle over a belly with a "bun in the oven," and if it moves in a circular motion, you're having a girl. If it moves back and forth like a pendulum, it's a boy. Apologies to my little brother, who was predicted to come out with XX chromosomes a little more than 10 years ago.

Warts and all: Reptile and amphibian wranglers would be covered in them if it were true that handling toads results in warts.

Who's making a face?: Ever been tempted to distort your face to show your displeasure, only to be told "Watch out, it'll get stuck that way"? Well, it's untrue. Cross those eyes. You'll be fine.

Justin Piercy


Korean wives' tale one of many legends unique to Canadian culture

Aug 19, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (1)
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."

As for hypothermia, Giesbrecht says moving air by any means may affect heat loss or gain in skin and air temperature, but not enough to kill a young person in a warm room.

More than 1,300 individuals belong to the "People who don't believe in fan death" group on Facebook, poking fun at the theory. Their display picture features a stand-up fan with "You could be next" typed ominously beside it.

Still, members of the group are astounded by the deep faith some people have in fan death.

If it's impossible, why would it be such a widely accepted story?

Clarke-Gray did some digging and found (as did some of the Facebook group members) alcohol played a role in some of the Korean cases. Fan death may simply be a scapegoat for a more serious problem.

"It tends to be young people found dead in their rooms and they blame the fan," she says. "It's just as likely that it's a cultural cover for alcohol (poisoning)."

Prof. Philip Hiscock, of Memorial University of Newfoundland's folklore department, says fan death is modern folklore and much like any other culture's stories that are repeated and passed along until they are eventually accepted.

Old wives' tales and legends, though, often cover up a problem people do not wish to talk about. "Traditional fairy legends (or) contemporary UFO abductions are used for things that are either inadmissible or untellable in present company," Hiscock says.

"There have been plenty written about (and) used as a way to get around telling children the truth about some event. `Well, the fairies took her.' We don't have to say if someone left their spouse.



"The fact that fan death is well known in Korea (and) can be used to postpone explanations or cover up the truth is very interesting and a very traditional way of going about things."

Cover-ups aside, Clarke-Gray jokes that the piece of folklore could be a solution for keeping order in her classroom.

"The next time I need to keep my class in line, I'll just bring in my electric fan."

[monkinwonderland]

[Guri Guy]

The belief in fan death is really like the belief in Santa Claus.

Santa Claus is a fantasy that kids enjoy to keep them in line and behaving well. It also covers up the fact that it's the parents giving the presents to the child.

The idea of fan death is to cover up issues like suicide, alcohol poisoning, heart attacks and liver failure. It keeps them in line as well. (not wasting excessive electricity)

A crappy analogy maybe but they are both pure fantasy.

[BigBuds]

[ED209]

Fan death is a fairly modern myth whilst the Western examples are fairly old. There are worse modern beliefs in the west such as MMR jabs can cause autism, magnets can cure depression, wheat-grass will do curative wonders or just watch an episode of myth busters for others. Western society is full of silly beliefs many of them dangerous. Fan death is just embarrassing.

[Adventurer]

[monkinwonderland]

[endo]

I slept with a fan on all last night.


I'm dead now.

[diver]

[peppermint]

[bangbayed]

LOL, peppermint, good one. Don't get me started on Creationism, which of course is also pretty rampant here in the ROK, unfortunately.

[diver]