I’m currently in Korea on business…and the Teeming will want to know that:
–the Korean Times last week contained an article warning about the danger of leaving an electric fan on while sleeping, thus confirming a recent and odd fact that SD brought forth. The Times article even explained the two methods how this occurs (one was hypothermia, the other I don’t remember).
–my host confirmed that some Koreans eat dog food, claiming that it makes them strong and fit
–my host also confirmed that some also still eat dog meat.
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The electric fam urban legend is also common in Japan. I lived in a lodging house where the room fans had timers so you couldn’t let them run for more than an hour, to avoid the “deadly” effects while sleeping. I jammed a pencil in the dial so it ran overnight.
There are lots of weird things like this in asia. I got sick from bronchitis and went to a clinic in Japan, they gave me some medicine and told me not to bathe for 2 weeks. Supposedly bathing would disturb my precious bodily essences or something. I met a Canadian woman who gave birth twice in Japanese hospitals, she said they wouldn’t even let her take a sponge bath for several days after giving birth, she had to lie in bed for days with all that birth guck all over her. She said she’d fly back to N. America before she’d give birth in Japan again.
–my host confirmed that some Koreans eat dog food, claiming that it makes them strong and fit
–my host also confirmed that some also still eat dog meat.
Wondering what correllation these cultural idiosyncracies have in relation to electric fans uh, have you verified the validity of these latter claims or do you simply believe every tale someone tells you? The host was probrably taking you for a gullible naive foreigner who wants to hear some wild far-fetched story.
In North Korea, where famine and starvation run rampant, I do not doubt they would eat Dog.
Oh, FYI, the practice of eatting Dog in Asia usually entails the consumption of Wild Dog, not Domesticated.
Considering the deliciousness and highly nutritional value of Korean cuisine, which spans some 5,000 years in its antiquity, I doubt any would stoop to consumming ‘Dog Food’ for strength as you state. If you or anyone has ever tasted Kimchi, Golbi, or Bulgogki before, you’ll know exactly that which I speak of.
Oh, and feel free to post any more wild tales your host tells you.
I have lived in Asia for 20 odd years but not Korea (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Japan). I use an electric fan a LOT. In fact, right now, sitting in my boxers in Shanghai, I am using an electric fan without an airconditioner. I am still alive.
/hijack/BTW, my father ate dog in Korea during the Korean war. How did he know it was dog? He proudly states he was the one that bashed it in the head. Also, IIRC, the Wall Street Journal had a piece on the Korean dog farms for raising restaurant supplies./end hijack/
The deaths were (allegedly) from the use of electric fans in a CLOSED ROOM, not just the use of electric fans anywhere. I think it’s a crock, but assuming it isn’t, here’s my crackpot theory:
Electrical discharges in air can cause toxic ozone (O3) to form from ordinary molecular oxygen (O2).
Due to faulty insulation, a lethal buildup of ozone occured in the sealed room.
My host ALSO tells me that he has a speeding ticket insurance policy, available for a modest premium, that pays all speeding tickets that he gets.
I don’t think he’s kidding. He’s an engineer and a male, and thus incapable of doing too much in the verbal/clever department.
BTW, interesting idea on the Death By Fan…but the voltages in households produce virtually nil ozone, even if there were miles of uninsulated wire present.
gump,
I’m sure you are correct about the ozone thing. It was just an idea that occured to me as I read the article. But all the other theories are absurd also, including the hypothermia one. I don’t personally believe any deaths were caused by sleeping in a room with an electric fan, whatever Korean newspapers say.
Now then: As an engineer and a male, I take objection to your comment about my gender and profession being deficient on the “verbal/clever” department. I scored 720 (uncorrected) on my verbal SAT’s, and as for clever, well…okay, I can’t think of a good comeback for that one right now. I’ll get back to you…
The way it was explained to me, overuse of the fan will deplete your “ki” (or your “chi” or your Vital Bodily Essence or whatever). If your ki gets depleted enough, you die. What a bunch of rot.
This is somewhat related to the no-bathing when sick rule I mentioned. It’s supposed to be overstimulate your ki. Surely there is something to this ki theory, albeit much less than the folk wisdom believes.
What makes you think “Surely there is something to this ki theory”? It’s a totally bogus mystical “energy” system dreamed up when knowledge of anatomy was minimal and spiritualist superstition was all people had to go by. It has held on through the cultural inertia, and the same thing that keeps psychics in business and faith healers with steady flocks.
Back in my college days (not that long ago really, in teh grand scheme of things), my best friend lived across the street from me in a sort-of communal home. It was run by a religious affiliated organization in order to provide low-cost housing for college students (naturally, only the ones who would agree to become born-again Christians). Many of the students living there where foreign exchange students.
Now, this was in Kentucky, and summers in Kentucky can get reasonably hot and VERY humid. These conditions lead to a lot of air conditioner use by most people. However, one summer a young Korean woman moved into the house. Every chance she got, she turned off the A/C. It took a while for the other residents to figure out who was doing it, and they were fairly steamed about it (pun intended). When they confronted her, she explained that running the A/C was potentially deadly. She told them that every year, many people die from ‘abusing’ the air conditioning. She never explained the supposed mechanism by which the A/C could be lethal.
Needless to say, no-one was convinced. None of us had ever heard the ‘electric fan death’ stories from Korea at this time, so we were all surprised. In fact, most of the residents attributed this bizzarre belief to her general strangeness and it wasn’t until several years later that we heard there were similar widespread beliefs in Korea.
In spite of the logical explanations about how many people in the US use A/C without problems, she would not relent. She continued to turn the A/C off every chance she got and would put up quite a verbal fight when anyone tried to turn it on. One day, my friend returned to the house to find the temperature in his room was in the high 90’s! Shortly thereafter, this young woman was voted out of the house.
It’s chi. It’s pronounced chee. Actually it’s pronounced qi but many people don’t know how to say that, and apparently some see the word qi and think it’s pronounced ki. It’s chi.
For the past seven years, I have taught English in Busan (formerly spelled Pusan) South Korea. First of all, the life energy force that pervades the universe is spelled “chi” or “qi” in Chinese. Koreans spell it as “ki” although it is pronounced as “gi.” Second of all, the “electric fan death” is but one example of a myriad of superstitions that only a relatively small number of people subscribe to. The vast majority of Koreans, especially the university age students that I teach, are as safely grounded in reality as Americans like to think that they are. Lastly, let me set the record straight. Koreans do not eat dog food, but they do eat dog meat. It is most commonly served as soup, called “bo-shin-tang” in Korean. There are restaurants serving dog meat soup within walking distance of my house. Wanting to experience as many aspects of life in Korea as possible, I even tried it once myself. It is a dish that is nearly exclusively consumed by middle-aged and elderly men. One of the aforementioned superstitions that these men believe in is that dog meat enhances one’s sexual potency. Because impotency is not a concern of young men and women of all ages, they almost never eat it. The practice of eating dog meat may be on the way out. My students of both genders find it to be fairly repugnant and claim that they never have and never will engage in it. For the women, that’s easy to say. For the men, if they experience erectile problems as they get older, there’s always viagra (recently approved in Korea).
In the pinyin system of Mandarin, it is written “qi”, and pronounced like the beginning of cheese. Older romanization systems write it as “chi”. The exercise system Tai Chi is this same “chi” aka “qi”.
I’ve asked a few people here in Shanghai about this, but n one buys into it. If you can’t afford an airconditioner, you use a fan, and if you can’t afford a fan, you hang out on the sidewalk in a lawnchair and pajama’s. None of the above are believed by the Shanghaiese to be dangerous activities…