I've recently been informed of a particularly awesome South Korean uban legend called "fan death". Apparently, many Koreans believe that an electric fan left running in a closed room can kill a person by a) depleting the oxygen supply in the room causing suffocation, or b) lowering the temperature in the room causing hypothermia. Because of this widespread belief, fans manufactured and sold in Korea have timer that turn them off after a certain number of mintues.
In case you don't believe me, I've found a particularly amusing proof of this on wikipedia...
"The phenomenon of fan death is accepted by many Korean medical professionals. In summer, mainstream Korean news sources regularly report on cases of fan death. A typical example is this excerpt from the July 28th, 1997, edition of The Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper:
The heat wave which has encompassed Korea for about a week, has generated various heat-related accidents and deaths. At least 10 people died from the effects of electric fans which can remove oxygen from the air and lower body temperatures...
On Friday in eastern Seoul, a 16-year-old girl died from suffocation after she fell asleep in her room with an electric fan in motion. The death toll from fan-related incidents reached 10 during the past week. Medical experts say that this type of death occurs when one is exposed to electric fan breezes for long hours in a sealed area. "Excessive exposure to such a condition lowers one's temperature and hampers blood circulation. And it eventually leads to the paralysis of heart and lungs," says a medical expert. "To prevent such an accident, one should keep the windows open and not expose oneself directly to fan air," he advised.
I'm sure Americans have their share of erronous beliefs. Nevertheless, I must say that I generally find Koreans to be smart, albiet EXTREMELY superstitous people!
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