(no subject)
My fascination with fan death continues. Some things you can just write off as simple cultural differences, but others are just too... weird. A summary of my findings:
- I have confirmed that at least one Korean grad student in my department believes in fan death.
- The belief is so widespread in Korea that electric fans there have sleep timers! (See the pictures in the above link.)
- The belief seems to persist in all age groups and education levels, including doctors.
For no reason in particular, I've always been interested in urban legends, but this one I find more interesting than all the others I know about. Of course, urban legends are widely believed all over the place -- I admit that, at various times in my life, I have believed many, and probably unknowingly still do. I guess what gets me about fan death is the fact that even the doctors in Korea seem to believe it, and that the belief seems unshakable. The folks at fandeath.net have stories that Koreans, even when presented with evidence that fans couldn't possibly cause death the way it's commonly described in the Korean media stories, still persist in believing in it. Part of me wants to find a Korean and smack him until he acknowledges that fan death might not, in fact, be real. Another part of me wants to somehow trap a Korean in a room with closed doors and windows and a running electric fan, and laugh at the hysterical reaction that would undoubtedly result. (OK, so I wouldn't really do either of those things, but still.)
This leads me to all sorts of questions. How on earth did this belief ever get started? I suppose we'll probably never have a good answer to that one. But it also makes you wonder if there are any similar such fallacies commonly believed by Americans. How would we know, or even find out? If you think about it, most people don't really know much of anything about the natural sciences and the human body in particular, so we basically just believe what we're told, much like the Koreans presumably do. If such a bizarre belief can somehow permeate the public psyche in Korea, and to the extent that the media and even the experts on the subject are convinced of it, why not here?
In any event, the internet doesn't seem to contain enough information on this subject (at least, in English,) and I plan to harass more Koreans on this subject until I'm satisfied that I've gotten to the bottom of this.
- I have confirmed that at least one Korean grad student in my department believes in fan death.
- The belief is so widespread in Korea that electric fans there have sleep timers! (See the pictures in the above link.)
- The belief seems to persist in all age groups and education levels, including doctors.
For no reason in particular, I've always been interested in urban legends, but this one I find more interesting than all the others I know about. Of course, urban legends are widely believed all over the place -- I admit that, at various times in my life, I have believed many, and probably unknowingly still do. I guess what gets me about fan death is the fact that even the doctors in Korea seem to believe it, and that the belief seems unshakable. The folks at fandeath.net have stories that Koreans, even when presented with evidence that fans couldn't possibly cause death the way it's commonly described in the Korean media stories, still persist in believing in it. Part of me wants to find a Korean and smack him until he acknowledges that fan death might not, in fact, be real. Another part of me wants to somehow trap a Korean in a room with closed doors and windows and a running electric fan, and laugh at the hysterical reaction that would undoubtedly result. (OK, so I wouldn't really do either of those things, but still.)
This leads me to all sorts of questions. How on earth did this belief ever get started? I suppose we'll probably never have a good answer to that one. But it also makes you wonder if there are any similar such fallacies commonly believed by Americans. How would we know, or even find out? If you think about it, most people don't really know much of anything about the natural sciences and the human body in particular, so we basically just believe what we're told, much like the Koreans presumably do. If such a bizarre belief can somehow permeate the public psyche in Korea, and to the extent that the media and even the experts on the subject are convinced of it, why not here?
In any event, the internet doesn't seem to contain enough information on this subject (at least, in English,) and I plan to harass more Koreans on this subject until I'm satisfied that I've gotten to the bottom of this.