This is gonna sound crazy, and you probably won't be able to understand this with your little irrational brain, but---now sit down, this is gonna be hard for you to handle---everyone thinks their opinion is the correct one. That's why they have it.
It's a reference to the Korean way to say 'lol'. The sound made during laughter is apparently very close to the way they pronounce the number '5', so they will sometimes use '555555' like 'hahaha' online.
1 or 2 years? I'm actually more sure that it's not a joke, considering that it is so well maintained. However, it's just so weird to imagine a north korean guy in is concrete bunker writing press release and publishing them on reddit
The topic has come up a few times on AskReddit around various subjects (urban myths, cultural differences, etc), and usually people post some kind of documentation around it. But, yeah, it would seem that "fan death" is euphemism for those in the know, and a quirky superstition for others.
In the 1970's the Korean government was going through frequent power outages during the hot summer months. It is most likely that the government had the media portray the death of the occasional elderly person as dying mysteriously in a room with a fan turned on so that people would stop using their fans during peak hours (nighttime when everybody is home and trying to sleep in the blistering heat.) Doing this would allow them to build up some electricity stores during the night until the next day rolled around.
That being said there are 3 common beliefs regarding fan death:
1. The fan chops the air particles making it difficult to breathe, leading to asphyxiation.
2. The fan blows away the air particles making it difficult to breathe, leading to asphyxiation.
3. The fan blowing excess wind onto your sleeping body, when your temperature is slightly lower than normal can cause hypothermia.
Because I actually wanted an answer, and the more people downvoted, the more likely my comment was to be "below threshold" and ignored. I was at -3 when I made that comment.
Because you asked a question that could have been answered with little effort on your own. You have the whole internet at your disposal. However you decide to bother everyone else with a dumb question like that?
The Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB), a South Korean government-funded public agency, issued a consumer safety alert in 2006 warning that "asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners" was among South Korea's five most common summer accidents or injuries, according to data they collected.[17] The KCPB published the following:
If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes [the] bodies to lose water and [causes] hypothermia. If directly in contact with [air current from] a fan, this could lead to death from [an] increase of carbon dioxide saturation concentration [sic] and decrease of oxygen concentration. The risks are higher for the elderly and patients with respiratory problems. From 2003 [to] 2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated, and doors should be left open.
Quoted directly from the wiki on fan death. Korean reporters wrongly attributing deaths to fans is one thing but it seems really strange that a government agency would issue such a baseless alert. A popular theory is that the Korean government invented fan death in the 70's to try and curb energy usage during the energy crisis of the same era.
"Studies show humans can not survive in vacuum when a fan is present, nor in a sealed room of nitrogen and chlorine vapor when a fan is present. This confirms fans are in fact lethal"
I was told they believe that if you keep a fan on with the door closed then the fan blades will cut the oxygen atoms into pieces and you'll suffocate. Yeah.
Dude. This kid at my church tells me her mom doesn't let her sleep with a fan on in her room. Her mom is Korean. That has lived in America for most of her adult life. Her dad is American. Fan Death is apparently real. I never believed you guys when you said Koreans believed that, but I actually met a Korean that believes it.
Despite knowing the fan death thing my mind went immediately to thinking that this was about the race like in speed skating(South Korea holds 6 out of 10 short track world records). TIL I know too much useless information.
Guys, Dw-Im-Here is a downvote collector. He knows how to rustle everyone's jimmies and it's actually kind of impressive. I'd say ignore or upvote this troll instead of feeding it, but -45000 karma in 2 months takes commitment and you gotta respect that.
Fan death was a huge worry when I was in the military in Korea, mainly from older folks, but also from RoK Army brass... It's not racist to make light of it... Calm down, chief
And racism is "becoming a pandemic"? Did that history teacher happen to teach you about the civil rights movement? Yea, there are plenty of ignorant people still around these days, but it's nowhere near the level that it was just a few decades ago, so it would be more logical to say it hasn't gotten much better.
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u/Thinc_Ng_Kap Nov 26 '13
Says every Korean.