Donald Gruener/istock

I just arrived in South Korea, and my colleague says that I can die if I sleep in a closed room with a fan on. He insists that "fan death" is an actual danger. What the hell?

"I'm told that every Korean believes that fan death is real," Jeffery Hodges, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, tells AF. "I've heard as explanation that the belief originated at a time when Koreans were first able to purchase electric fans and used them to such an extent that electrical systems were burdened, so the government spread a rumor that running them overnight was potentially fatal."

Hodges also shared the following passage from the government-issued Cultural Guide for Migrant Workers in Korea: "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from oxygen deficiency, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." "Some Koreans," he adds, "give outlandish explanations about how the whirling blades of a fan can sever oxygen molecules."

So far as AF is able to determine, no scientific literature exists to support the existence of fan death, nor does it seem to be a perceived threat in any other country but Korea. File it — like the faith of the French in the healing power of Rochebaron cheese smeared on the testicles — under "Urban Myths, Foreign Dolts."

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