A friend a few years ago had a homestay in a Korean home (this all happened in Seoul) and one morning he complained about his experience the night before. It was summer, it was hot, he turned on his fan, X amount of time later he went to sleep only to later wake and discover the fan was turned off. Hot, he turned it back on and went back to sleep. He later awoke again and discovered the same thing. The following morning the family told him, very seriously, that they saved his life.
I have since learned about a saying in Japanese that roughly says "don't let a breeze cross your face while you sleep." I have discovered that a fan (breeze) will sometimes give me a sore throat if the air was dry. Pouring water on the hard floor or putting a bowl of water out saves me from any discomfort.
Since Korea has had very hard times in its' history, simple colds could lead to bigger health problems sometimes being death. Case in point, they celebrate the 100th Day Birthday of children as it is an indicator of the health of the child; if the child is still alive and healthy after 100 days, chances are the child will live for years to come.
So okay, head colds are bad, in poor conditions it could prove to be more dangerous. That all makes sense to me. Then I was reading my favorite expat blog and they linked to Wikipedia's page on "Fan Death". In summary there are several methods in which people can die due to use of a fan:
-vortex is created which takes the oxygen out of the air: death by suffocation
-oxygen particles are broken apart: death by suffocation
-the fan uses up all of the oxygen in the room causing carbon dioxide poisoning
-body temperature will change too dramatically causing hypothermia
There have been many news articles on "fan death" and the victims it has claimed, not to mention some indie short films on the subject.
I asked one of our English teachers about their views on the subject, only to have them confirm the urban legend. Standing up, she then asked all of the teachers in the Teacher Room their thoughts; everyone straight-faced agreed that fans are in fact deadly. Thirty minutes later another teacher confirmed this and warned me to be careful.
Don't worry if you've never heard this before. Koreans will also proudly tell you that kimchee cures bird flu as well as SARS, not to mention it will prevent multiple kinds of cancers, improve the skin, and literally is the cure to the common cold.
Not to mention that Koreans are more vulnerable to contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (Mad Cow) despite the fact that no Korean has ever caught the disease in the last 28 years.
I have previously thought that this shirt was funny (closeup on the image), then extremely, and now I'm just shaking my head.
Oh, and I should mention that thankfully we Americans are the rational ones. I have yet to hear of another country having animal psychologists to determine what our cows are thinking. Through one of these psychologists we Americans now know that cows don't want to be sent to Korea. Oh yes, the rational thinkers.
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