Korean Fan Death
istommydrunk.svbtle.com
istommydrunk.svbtle.com
I'm an ex-pat from an Eastern European country, currently living in the UK. Where I come from, there is a subcurrent of racism that pretty much everyone has. I've heard all the standard ones: "[ethnic group]? You know what they're like" and "[religious group] are all [stereotype]. Oh, [a good acquaintance who is the only member of said religious group this person knows]? He's all right, yeah, but he's an exception."[1]
These come in the form of gut feelings that you somehow know are true, and when you're presented with evidence to the contrary you just assume it's an exception to the rule. Even if you objectively know these gut feelings are incorrect, they're still hard to dispel because they're so deeply ingrained. It's stuff that's taken me a while to shake off.
What I'm trying to say is: challenge your gut responses to stuff. It'll make you a better person.
[1]: These are almost verbatim quotes from people who are otherwise fairly open-minded and progressive.
Edit: And don't even get me started about the ones who aren't progressive and open minded.
This statement is simply not true. I live in South Korea and I always run it all night in summer.
This is unfortunately a very common way of thinking in the US, and completely backwards.
In this case, all you would have to do is speak with someone from South Korea to find out about this, and it turns out, some do believe it - I found out about this phenomena from a friend from Korea, and she believed it to be true even though she knew the science behind it was bunk.
That's what what he said. What he said was that because the author made a claim that is empirically, provably false, it shows the author didn't reach a level of research that would show them that the claim was false. It brings into question other claims the author has made.
On Fan Death, the media bought it all up and publicized it on TV, naturally most South Koreans believe it. They are super conscious about anything related to health (even though smoking and binge drinking is quite common here).
If I have a cold, my wife (Korean) will tell me to go to the hospital. I grew up with not taking medicine unless it's absolutely necessary.
Back on topic, It's more of a culturally thing. I wouldn't bother trying to explain to people that it's not real, focus on feeling amused about the cultural difference.
Likwise, I'm from Australia, in my hometown (small beach town), I could walk to the local convenience store wearing no footware, no tshirt - just boxer shorts. To Korean people, they'd think I'm insane..... Just trying to highlight the differences in culture; seeing the humorous side of things is often better than trying to persuade someone they're wrong.
Walking in to a supermarket with boardies is fine in my hometown (Port Macquarie).
You should know though, my town is warm all year round. I used to surf in winter without a wetsuit.
But yeah, I like to eat horse (and rabbit) meat while I would be looked upon with disgust in most parts of the world :)
I used to see "No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service" on American stores. But as far as I know, few Americans walk around the streets in what is actually underwear.
The Wikipedia article does have a citation from 1927 [1], though, so it would seem the origins are much older than that.
My guess is it's a bit of all of the above. Maybe there was a little bit of belief in it, and the government, but government efforts to reduce energy usage as well as families using it to cover up suicide or drug overdoses helped propagate the belief and make it far more widespread.
> cultural mythos is so powerful that it can make people believe things they know to be untrue without even offering them anything in return.
The situation is even worse, unfortunately. This is called fetishistic disavowal: "I know very well, but...". Not only does it take the form of protecting obviously false beliefs (as with fan death), but it can also function as a way of disavowing what we know to be true.
Many of us know the world is facing a set of worsening crises (environmental/social/economic) but continue to live our lives as if this is not the case. I don't mean those who, for example, dispute the truth of global warming, I am speaking of those who know very well it is true but do not do anything.
The philosopher Slavoj Zizek often repeats a story about the astrophysicist Niels Bohr. While a friend was visiting Bohr's country home, they asked why a horseshoe was placed above a doorway, a common good-luck superstition practiced in Europe and elsewhere. Bohr's reply: "of course I don't believe it works, but I was told that it works even if you don't believe in it." Many beliefs in modern times work in this way.
I assume you have some cure that isn't worse than the disease.
> [Paul Adrien Maurice] Dirac had a horse shoe over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed that a horse shoe brought luck. Professor Dirac replied, "I understand that it brings you luck if you believe in it or not."
further reading: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/09/horseshoe-luck/
http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.h...
and
http://www.epa.gov/hiri/about/pdf/EHEguide_final.pdf pg43 and appendix B
this comment totally misses the point of the article. but I was sufficiently amused to learn about "real" fan death that I thought it was worth sharing.
Appendix B also warns you about the extreme dangers of a fan.
1. Being in a completely sealed room when it's very hot outside can kill you,
2. Even though it may make you feel cooler, a fan won't really help in that situation, and
3. It may actually make the problem worse by increasing convection of the air and making it hotter.
I'd argue that calling that "fan death" is misleading, as it's really the heat that's causing the health concerns, not the fan. But it's good to keep in mind these kinds of concerns.
From the temperature records I can find, temperatures that high are a once in a lifetime event in South Korea. On the other hand, you would experience such temperatures regularly in Arizona, for example, but if you're living in Phoenix and are at risk for heat death, I'd hope you have AC.
"Eu non creo nas meigas, mais habelas, hainas"
Which roughly translates to: I don't believe in witches, but they are out there
This sounds a lot like my OCD. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in a "higher power." And yet, I feel compelled to do certain things a certain number of times all because well, "it can't hurt, and just in case." I wish I could explain it better but that article is exactly how I feel about my OCD.
I had an argument with my wife about this subject years ago. She is from S. Korea and I am from the US. She had yelled at me because I left a fan on and fell asleep. When she got home from work and realized what happened she freaked out and told me I could die that way. At the time I remember thinking that she was absolutely crazy to believe this was possible. We argued for a long time about it and at the time I remember questioning her sanity, repeatedly. Eventually she dropped it and admitted it probably was wrong of her.
Every once in a while this strange superstitious stuff pops up with her. I love her deeply but it is not easy being married to a South Korean. :-)
"My superstition isn't crazy, but theirs is."
Wouldn't you need to have not only been to Korea, but also everywhere else (at least, all the populated places) on the planet to justifiably say that "without a doubt"?
> they are the most gullible people
wat.
I find it hard to understand how such beliefs get started, or manage to remain so prevalent.
1. Something uneventful thing happens (a guy likes to leave his windows open) 2. He gets cancer and dies 3. Cross drafts are clearly the problem
> A team from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that low temperatures dampen natural defences against rhinoviruses, the leading causes of seasonal colds, in mice and in human airway cells.
Korea is a very well connected country: some of us do read the English wikipedia.
Also, I kinda like timers in electric fans (though it's been years since I used one): there's no need to blow wind when you're asleep. Sure you wouldn't die, but you might catch cold or find yourself awake at 4 am because your limbs are uncomfortably cold.
(My parents probably still believe in fan death, though.)
Finally, as someone below said, "you can’t even buy a fan that will run all night." is patently false. Every fan I can remember has a "run indefinitely" position.
No more than leaving rags laying around will give you an infestation of mice.
> there's no need to blow wind when you're asleep
Except to keep the room at a comfortable temperature.
I guess a few people still believes the myth and likes to keep the page that way. (Korean wikipedia has much smaller community behind it, so it's easier to exert editorial influence if someone is committed. At least that was my impression several years ago.)
No, the unexplained lights in the hall at night were nothing in comparison.
There's a significant amount of people who don't actually get scared of "spooky old houses". Just like there's some people who don't get nervous when a giant spider is on their hand. Or when they're talking to a crowd. Or when they're on top of a cliff.
I'd certainly be nervous in a "spooky old house" but certainly not for its ghosts. I do despise spiders for one thing.
but at the same time, what is interesting to me, is that most of us can get scared by horror films or movies about ghosts. so if you get scared by a ghost in a movie, could that mean you believe, at least for a moment, in ghosts? or would it simply mean that IF ghosts existed, you would be afraid of them.
Doesn't it have more to do with better safe than sorry human mentality? You barely think about something positive when staring at a completely dark hallway and your brain starts to draw you scary pictures.
The extra incentive is that you don't die. You don't have to believe the myth to do a cost analysis in your head. Many people who don't believe in god will turn to god in dire situations.
There's also the fact that this phenomenon has never been observed outside of South Korea. People around the world sleep indoors with fans on every day.
You could say the same thing for SIDS, but most people in the west accept that it exists.
> People around the world sleep indoors with fans on every day.
Then surely some of them must die in their sleep, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do a study.
It's one thing to say that no research has been done to study whether people who sleep under fans are more likely to die in their sleep, or to say that the South Korean belief is unjustified given the lack of evidence, but to say that it's 'obviously false' strikes me as being a little bit racially tinged.
There is probably a just-so story that meets this standard, but none has occurred to me.
Or, part of me thinks that while you know it doesn't make sense, you don't lose anything by being careful about the fan. I think the people in Korea mentioned here are playing Pascal's Wager but with household electronics.
Once everyone has a fan, how do you get people to buy more fans? Make them think their current fans will kill them, and sell more expensive fans with improved ‘safety’ features.
Well played Korea, well played.
But who knows? There could have been a death that could have been prevented by turning off a fan, and nobody can verify its nonexistence. My attitude toward this is like my agnostic attitude toward God: I just can't know its existence or nonexistence. And I think what the people in the article are expressing can be understood in a similar line (though 100% is an overstatement.)
Still I sometimes argue with Koreans with relatively less background in scientific thinking about scientific things like if fan deaths are possible, or using metal spoons for yogurts kill more microbes than plastic spoons, etc, but many times, my conclusion is that I just can't have any conviction about either ways.