Fan death

[tsaiko]

You learn something new every day. o_O

Fan Death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners.

I'm filing this under: I have got to use this belief in an alien species one day.

Comments

[sagesae.livejournal.com]

Lol

It's the funniest thing too to walk up to a Korean and ask them if they truly believe in this. Their reactions are amazing. In Korea, they even have reports on the number of fan deaths within the year. **shakes her head** Both I and a friend who has also worked alongside Koreans has had them panicked at the door yelling about how they can hear a fan in the room.

**shakes her head** Stubborn Koreans. They're so silly.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I would be dead several times over if this was true. I use to live in the Southern US in a room where the AC didn't work well. I would close the door to keep the cats from lying on me, close the window to keep out humidity, and crank up the fans. Heck, it was the only way I could get comfortable enough to sleep.

Although given some of our own urban legends (crocodiles in the NY sewers, Lost Dutchman's gold mine, or Bloody Mary appearing in the mirror) I'm not going to point fingers too hard.

Also I see you noticed that I friended you. ^^

[sagesae.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! Yes I did!

What's funny is they'll even admit it's a solely Korean phenomenon. They understand it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world (some of them anyway) and the others just claim we mistake fan death for something else.

And yes. We have weird urban legends too. Many of which I'm fairly scared of by default.

I'd also wanted to comment on your fanfic, Sparkle. The topic of it is something that hit so close to home and the way it was written was so well done, that I couldn't NOT friend you.

I've never seen someone with the degree of PTSD that Duo has in the story but I know it's out there and I see enough of the other kinds all the time to know how real it is.

But...well, you earned my eternal love immediately. Besides, there was enough in there to get my inner fangirl going.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Eee! I'm glad you like Sparkle. When I wrote it I kind of wished I had a better resource to learn about PTSD (mostly what I could find were news articles and diagnosis, with not much emphasis on symptoms). Mostly I had to wing it. It's always gratifying that I wasn't too far off (although I wouldn't wish PTSD on anyone).

[sagesae.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've seen a few too many people who have it.

Really, you displayed the flashback portion of PTSD rather well to my knowledge. Really, the closest my experience comes to that is brief spurts of fear at sharp, loud noises that come with the thought to move. Move where? I don't know. I know several guys couldn't play those army video games after returning because the explosions sounded too real to them.

I know PTSD comes in many forms, so many I think they only really categorize the main ones. And on top of that, it doesn't even have to be causes from a situation of seeing the war from the outside the camps. If you were there, you can have it. It's just pure stress. You never get days off, you're already stressed about being there and people shooting at you, or the fact that even as a minor soldier, there's so much media pressure and political pressure in everything you do that screwing up is BAD.

The worst part of it is that a majority of people don't get help. They think first what their buddies will think if they knew they were and convince themselves they're too strong to need that sort of thing. Or their not weak enough to even be suffering.

And people back in the states? They tend to not understand it either. I think that's why I was so impressed with Sparkle - outside of it just being very good. People who haven't been usually are blind to it all, as if it never happens. It frustrating.

[m-steelgrave.livejournal.com]

My Korean students were quite serious about this. A senior of mine last year got into a terrible argument with his room mate over leaving the air conditioning on overnight in their dorm room. He ended up having to take a single because he was so persistent about it. It blew my mind. He was an honors student, very stereotypically talented in the math/science areas, and he sincerely believed he would suffocate to death if the A/C were left on.

Bizarre.

[skylark97.livejournal.com]

I can kinda understand the A/C one. If just because every time there was a hurricane that ripped through FL when I lived there, some putz would hook up their generator wrong in order to get A/C and they'd kill themselves with carbon monoxide.

The electric fan is really a bit of a head scratcher, though...

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I've gotten sick from leaving the fan blowing on me overnight, usually of the sore throat vareity (and really, no one can tell me otherwise). But the idea that you can die from it because it sucks away all the oxygen? Or causes hypothermia? No. Just... no.

Though like I pointed out to someone else, I can't laugh too hard. The US has it's own share of really bizarre urban legends.

[zombiebanana.livejournal.com]

xD Whaaaaaat? We shut our bedroom door and turn our electric fan on high every night and I'm not dead yet. D: Silly Koreans...

English is a strange language

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

I am very relieved to see that it was not a fan of your writing who had died!

[jaysons-lady.livejournal.com]

That is really weird. How can it suffocate you if it's blowing air in at you? I don't get that at all.
Also, I always thought it was alligators in NYC sewers. And considering their depth, complexity, extent, warmth, and the abundance of rats in that city, it wouldn't surprise me if there were some down there someplace. Though I doubt they were flushed down a toilet to get there.

I never heard of the Lost Dutchman's Gold mine.

*note* I need to go read Sparkle. Hadn't gotten around to it yet.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Okay, this time without breaking the HTML.

Sparkle (http://www.tsaiko.com/Fanfics/Gundam/Sparkle.html).