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.
Comments
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."
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?
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.