Fan Death and Tongue Cutting

image Fan Death is "the belief that if someone is sleeping in a sealed room (windows and doors are closed) with an electric fan on, they could die." The theory is that either hypothermia will get you, or the fan breeze will somehow form a vacuum around your mouth and suffocate you. Apparently many people in Korea believe this is true. Or at least, this is what Robin, the creator of fandeath.net, has concluded after living in Korea for five years. He writes:

When I first heard about fan death, I discussed it with my Korean friends and students. I was the foreign skeptic and they were the loyal natives. I was shocked at how powerful their belief was and at the lack of critical thinking about the issue. All you have to do is bring up the issue of fan death with a Korean and it would be difficult to get them to accept the fact that fan death might not be true. Especially when talking to a foreigner, they are more likely to defend their cultural belief than question it. So, unable to have a semi-neutral discussion, I turned to the internet. After checking the internet for more information about fan death, I became greatly frustrated. I could not find any detailed information about fan death. So, I decided to make this site to encourage others to tell their stories and share their knowledge about the issue.

Robin's site includes info about some other unusual Korean beliefs, such as tongue- cutting, which is the theory that if you cut the frenulum (the tissue linking the tongue to the floor of the mouth) "your tongue will be more flexible and be able to pronounce those difficult English sounds." Robin says that for this reason tongue surgery is quite popular in Korea.

Body Manipulation Death

Posted on Wed Mar 09, 2005



Comments

I sleep with a fan blowing on me every night through the summer months, and have for years. My husband sleeps with a fan blowing on him just about every night, fall, winter, spring and summer(to cover up noise because he's a light sleeper). Since I'm able to type this, I think you'll have to assume I'm alive and well, and you're just going to have to take my word for it that my husband is alive and well, too.

Fan death isn't real. It just doesn't make any sense. The fact that 4.5 million Koreans believe it doesn't make it real, just as the fact that millions of Americans believe that touching toads gives you warts doesn't make that real. Nor does the fact that until just a few years ago, millions of Americans thought getting a sun tan was healthy make that real either.

The plain fact is that millions of people -- Korean, American, whatever -- can be wrong. So whatever you do, don't cite that "but everybody believes it" and think you've proven anything. When you say, "But everybody knows," you are not saying, "It is proven."
Posted by Kathleen  on  Tue Jul 03, 2007  at  10:41 AM
lol ok, i am a habitual sleeper of fans, started when i was young and has carried on into adulthood. I have slept for almost 22 years with a fan in my room, door closed/ window closed, door open/window closed, window open/door closed, both open. I now find it difficult to sleep without my fan, its on about 365 days of the year for the last 9 years.(minus holidays at the parents.)if the air isn't moving i become restless, and ill at ease when i sleep, the air feels stagnant and heavy, i usually end up getting out of bed and sleeping in the front room because there is more air.. or so it seems. SO, if fan death was a reality, i must be a statistical anomaly, if thats so i should try sky diving from the space shuttle with out a parachute or oxygen. and in all likely hood the reason why old people die in the summer time is probably the heat, atleast that makes sense.
Posted by dan  on  Sun Aug 26, 2007  at  10:10 PM
ok, i'm sorry to promptly repost. But how is moving air reducing the amount of oxygen in a room? a fan isn't a vacuum that confines the air within the room.it merely accelerates it for a short distant causing the air in a confined space to move. Now, the fan will consume the air if its on fire, thats a different thing all together. A fan will not cause molecular bonding, converting oxigen into C02 or carbon-monoxide, or water, if yours does, you have a miracle fan and its the tears of mary. now if you are operating a gas powered fan, lol you got bigger problems then fan death. But carbon-monoxide poisoning is a reality, and old people are dying in there sleep, it could be related to that... or they're old and it was bound to happen anyways.. they're old. if an infant dies in their sleep, its called S.I.D.S., which is also completely unrelated to "fan death". oh yeah, and up till about the age of 6 or 7 65 million americans believe in santa claus, so if there are this many people who convinced to believe it, there're surely reason. Other potential deaths, allergens, airborne viruses, an assortment of things can affect you in your sleep, so in reality i seriously can't see any reason to lose any sleep over "fan death". hiyoo hyuk hyuk hyuk.
Posted by Dan  on  Sun Aug 26, 2007  at  10:26 PM
A side note about the tounges.
If you hold your tounge on the roof of your mouth whilst doing pilates, or weight lifting, it is easier to maintain balance.

Maybe that response is something similar to the indian thing of being able to roll your tounge back?
Posted by Kate  on  Mon Sep 03, 2007  at  11:51 AM
It may be that, like the swimming thing, there are other motivations behind the origins. We were staying by a lake and had just eaten. Sprog wanted to go swimming but I wanted to lounge around for a bit after eating and didn't want to supervise. Handy excuse, no swimming after eating.

So drop back a bunch of years, fans are noisy, electricity (in Korea) is expensive. Sprog wants fan on to keep cool, parent doesn't want noise and/or expense. Parent tellse sprog that fans while sleeping are dangerous. A legend is born.
Posted by Rich  on  Tue Jul 15, 2008  at  08:00 AM
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