All of the following assumes that “fan death” is still a widely held belief in South Korea. If the belief has disappeared, I’d be curious as to how this finally happened.
My questions are not about how widespread the belief in “fan death” is or whether or not it is real(it isn’t). My questions are more about how widely known it is in S. Korea that the rest of the world is…well, kind of laughing at them for believing in something that is provably not true.
Is there a pretty large amount of people that know it isn’t true as well? Are they fighting to end “fan death” ignorance there(it’s taking longer than they thought)?
Old folks in poor US neighborhoods sometimes die of heatstroke because they insist on turning their fans off at bedtime. Once upon a time, unattended electrical devices started a lot of fires.
For an authoritative answer, you might contact the online Korean Folklore Archive at UCLA. I’m not having any luck finding a URL, but the guy who runs it is easily contactable and very nice, and I’m sure he’d provide you a password to search the site if it’s restricted. (I haven’t seen it since the prototype, but it’s apparently the most awesome thing in terms of online folklore databases.)
It’s not a myth, though, at least not as folklorists use the term—that’s reserved for a certain kind of narrative, but although the term is colloquially used for all folklore it is not used by scholars for urban legends or for folk beliefs.
I think the shirt might be offensive to a Korean person. I’d be offended if someone walked around in a shirt adjuring the public to always leave a bit of milk out for the little people.
I am presently in South Korea. Yes, the myth is alive and well, sadly. Electric fans for sale here have notices on them advising the user to not leave the things running to prevent the risk of fan death. You may then wonder if the same notice is attached to air conditioners. It’s not. Evidently, an air conditioner isn’t really a fan, although it has a fan, electric fan, mind you, in it. One Korean friend, a science teacher, actually believed this urban legend. She passed away, but not from fan death. Her demise was from a head-on collision between her Matiz and a dump truck.
Interesting enough (to me, at least), not that many years ago, one very well could die from not leaving the windows open a bit at night while sleeping. That was during the winter, though. All the way up until the 1980s, Korean homes were heated by charcoal [url=Ondol - Wikipedia]ondol
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systems. That produced carbon monoxide. If there were any cracks in the ondol floor and the ventilation for the room wasn’t good, death by CO poisoning was the all too common result.
My theory is that the idea of passing away in sleep due to the bad circulation of air is simply a transference of the real consequences of the old ondol to the newer introduction of electric fans.
First, by myth, I meant “commonly believed falsehood”, though you are right the term is wrong.
My question is more about how aware the culture is that the rest of the world believes that it is false, not only for us, but also for Koreans. Are many Koreans aware this is only a Korean belief and that the rest of the world thinks they are wrong(about themselves, included)?
Is there a strong contingent of Koreans aware that it is false and trying to tell the rest of Korea?
Like that anti-anti-vaccinators trying to tell the anti-vaccinators how stupid they are.
Not wrong, really, just colloquial—I think everyone understood. I was only being pedantic because it was a folklore question and having the academic terminology is sometimes useful in pursuing the answers.
I don’t think Koreans are really aware of how ridiculous the idea of fan death is. Koreans are not really known for their self-awareness.
I mean, my dad is a scientist - he has a PhD in chemical engineering - and my mom is a teacher who attended the most prestigious teacher’s college in Korea - and both of them still think you shouldn’t leave the fan on at night. Fan death is reported on the news as a serious topic. There is not a trace of doubt that this is something real.
I think the younger generation, many of whom have studied abroad, are more aware how outsiders view this belief. Certainly it’s common for Western teachers to rant about the topic to their students.
I mean, it’s not THAT big of a deal. It’s not like there is mass panic over fans every summer. Nowadays people probably just turn on the a/c (ironic, I know).
In the end, Koreans don’t really care what foreigners think. About anything. This is a country where it’s still okay to do blackface on TV.
I don’t think it’s just a Korean idea that “having a fan blow on you = bad”. My wife is Chinese and she refuses to have a fan blow directly on her while she’s sleeping (using the oscillate setting avoids the dire consequences, apparently). There’s a corroborating comment on the Wikipedia talk page as well. Come to think of it, when I was a kid I heard that having wind blow on your face could give you Bell’s palsy.
What is my wife’s opinion when I scoff at her fan theory? The same as when I scoff at the idea that eating too many tangerines will give you a nosebleed, for instance: she just thinks I’m ignorant of traditional Chinese medicine, and even though she only half-believes in TCM herself, it’s better to be safe than sorry. At any rate, I don’t particularly like the sensation of a fan blowing directly on me, so it’s not a problem.
How long would it take to end the belief in western countries that getting wet or cold will give you a cold (or flu, or pneumonia, or “your death of cold”)? Even if it were proved to someone beyond doubt that it wasn’t factually true, they would still go away “knowing” in their hearts that it really was.
I wouldn’t be surprised if what you’re describing in Korea is the same sort of deep-seated belief.
It is widely believed by the older generations. And I confess that I’ve done it myself a few times. I always leave some heavy cream on Christmas. I do it mostly becase I have a little white jug that belonged to my Great Grandmother, and when it catches my eye I’ll do it more to remember her than anything else.
:: blushes ::
Ahem, so anyway. It just seems to me that the point of such a shirt is that it would seem ridiculous to the rest of us if only we could read it. It seems to be meant as an in-joke amongst those who can.
