
Fan death - jv22222
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
======
reustle
Fun story:

A few years ago I was backpacking around Asia met some friends in northern
Vietnam. We were 6 or 7 people so we just rented out a dorm room in a hostel.
There were 2 beds left, which were later filled by 2 Koreans.

That night we were all hanging out and the Koreans were quietly minding their
own business. It was pretty hot, as Vietnam usually is, so we had the ceiling
fans going strong.

Just before turning out the lights, I bent down to the lower bunk and asked if
it was ok to turn them off and leave the fan on. I get a mostly blank stare as
he murmured a word or two. It didn't sound likely anything close to a "no" do
I smiled and said goodnight!

Fast forward to breakfast the next morning, and we're talking about our sleep
and someone asks if we heard what they said before turning off the lights.
Turns out it was "fan death." Most of us hadn't heard of it before.

Poor guys probably didn't sleep all night.

~~~
acchow
Why didn't they just keep a window or door open too?

~~~
reustle
1) There were no windows in that room

2) Never leave a bedroom window open in SE Asia, unless you love mosquito
bites

~~~
rqs
> Never leave a bedroom window open in SE Asia, unless you love mosquito bites

A bit weird. How do you guys in the west repellent bugs during summer?

In China, we use window mesh + mosquito coil + vape mat, work like magic most
of the time.

~~~
m_t
Lots of places do not have that many mosquitoes.

In the places that do have a lot, mosquito nets on the windows might be
installed, or you plug a mosquito repellent.

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kbumsik
As a Korean it is funny to see this in HN. And yes, almost everyone used to
believe this so that my parents always taught me turning off the fan before
sleeping. This psudo-theory is so widespread that it is used to assassinate
someone in fictions.

~~~
wishinghand
Years ago I first took the Wikipedia article at face value. Later on I thought
to myself that it’s too far fetched for a majority of people to believe in it.
I had also heard that maybe it started as a euphemism for someone who had
committed suicide and caught on. Can you shed any light on how common it is?
Is it something that people with less education tend to believe?

~~~
rubatuga
These are just some of my thoughts. Even my parents used to believe in fan
death, and both my father and mother are very well educated. My father has a
PhD, and my mother has a Masters.

The younger generation don't believe in fan death anymore. Still, many of the
older Koreans that believe in fan death are very well educated. However,
talking to my parents, they were not educated to think critically, and even
today that is not a value that is stressed in Korea. Essentially the majority
of older Koreans were raised in a society which had dictatorships, coup
d'etat, assassinations, censorship, and government controlled media. Koreans
had great economic success, but less freedoms, similar to the situation in
China today. Questioning the status quo is detrimental, and keeping your mouth
shut is a virtue still taught in Korea today. Knowledge such as fan death is
just accepted as fact, and it stayed engrained until recently.

~~~
wishinghand
Thanks for filling me in. I can definitely see how that history and culture
could make fan death a fact.

Follow up: while critical thinking isn't encouraged or taught, does knowledge
of the widespread usage of fans and the lack of associated deaths elsewhere
ever come into conflict with their worldview?

~~~
rubatuga
I can ask my parents and get back to you.

------
djsumdog
Moldovans believe you can get sick from leaving a window open and the breeze
coming in. You can be on a packed, sticky hot microbus and they will not crack
open a window.

I don't think this superstition is specific to Eastern Europe because I've
heard some Germans state similar things about leaving windows open and getting
sick.

~~~
vaibhavsagar
There's a variant of this in Indonesia too:
[http://www.expat.or.id/medical/masukangin.html](http://www.expat.or.id/medical/masukangin.html)

------
labster
In reality, you need a fan in an enclosed space to prevent death—at least in
zero-G.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_in_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_in_space)

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benj111
This makes me think of all those pre 1960 American films where someone gets
wet in the rain, then at best gets a cold, at worst gets a fever and dies.

I believe its quite common in southern Europe to believe that swimming after
eating will lead to stomach cramps and drowning.

I'm surprised to hear the eastern European thing about breezes etc. It was
quite common in western Europe and America to open windows even in winter for
sleeping children, I believe the practice is still common in scandinavian
countries.

~~~
Double_a_92
> its quite common in southern Europe to believe that swimming after eating
> will lead to stomach cramps and drowning.

Taking a bath and showering too...

~~~
benj111
How does that work? I thought the fear was you wouldn't be able to swim due to
cramps, and drown. That isn't really a concern in the shower. And you aren't
really using the same (or any) muscles in the shower, to risk a cramp anyway.

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reificator
I had heard that it was a way to report on suicides without needing to specify
how they died.

~~~
djsumdog
That seems plausible.

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teekert
I think we have some of these things in the Netherlands as well, people
believe (among others):

* Air draft causes a stiff neck

* Freezing meat twice and eating it will make you sick

* Cold in general will make you sick ("catch a cold")

* If you hold your poo to long, you can never poo (well) anymore (from the grandparents, pretty sure they believed it, actually it may be true to a certain degree but they used to go when one need to go asap.)

I'm sure I'll come up with more.

~~~
maus42
>* Freezing meat twice and eating it will make you sick

Uh, every frozen meal I have ever seen has come with the printed warning not
to freeze it again after it has melted?

Freezing does not kill microbes, and additionally formation of ice during the
freezing breaks the internal structure of foodstuff making it better medium
for bacterial growth. So repeated freezing-unfreezing, especially if the
product is taken into room temperature and back allows unwelcome microbes to
proliferate. Like with all food poisoning hazards, it will not make you sick
with 100% certainty, but increases the risk enough that it is not recommended.

This is near word-by-word translation of the guidelines of Finnish medical
society [1] and food safety authority [2].

It is difficult to call "do not freeze stuff again" an unfounded superstition
equal to fan death if it is the common recommendation by national authorities.

[1]
[https://www.terveyskirjasto.fi/terveyskirjasto/tk.koti?p_art...](https://www.terveyskirjasto.fi/terveyskirjasto/tk.koti?p_artikkeli=asy00212)

[2] [https://www.evira.fi/elintarvikkeet/valmistus-ja-
myynti/elin...](https://www.evira.fi/elintarvikkeet/valmistus-ja-
myynti/elintarvikehygienia/hygieeniset-tyotavat/elintarvikkeiden-
pakastaminen/)

~~~
teekert
Ok I didn't consider the "makes meat more permeable to bacteria" -argument.
Still, bacteria do die from repeated freeze-thawing cycles. But, in any case,
I doubt many people ever investigated the scientific evidence.

~~~
coldtea
> _Ok I didn 't consider the "makes meat more permeable to bacteria"
> -argument. Still, bacteria do die from repeated freeze-thawing cycles._

Not really. They multiply during the thawing and lie "inactive" during
freezing. So repeated freeze-thawing cycles = several generations more
bacteria than you started with.

Bernhard Redl, an associate professor in the molecular biology department at
the University of Innsbruck in Austria:

"It is clear that freezing does not kill most of the bacteria," said Redl,
"but puts them in a dormant state." (...)

------
jansan
Another interesting aspect about Fan Death is Hacker News obsession with this
subject. There have been been about 15 stories on Hacker News about this so
far.

~~~
wishinghand
Well if it's over several years that's fine. It's an interesting oddity and
I'm sure the readership changes over time as well, making it new to plenty of
readers.

------
lordnacho
My father is the oldest of a very large bunch of kids. When I ask him to count
my aunts and uncles, he always mentions one who died as an infant.

And guess what the "cause" was? Now I understand it better, I always wondered
WTF he meant when he said someone left a fan on in the baby's room.

------
Simulacra
Oh wow I can't sleep without a fan. I stayed at a hotel in Berlin with no a/c
or blower option and I had a terrible nights' sleep. The follow year when I
went back to that hotel, they had a fan waiting for me. Bless them. I even
travel with a USB powered fan on airplanes, because those little nozzles of
recycled farts they keep moving further away just won't cut it.

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dredds
"Yohan Yoon noticed that his Korean-American parents kept opening the door to
his room whenever he slept with the fan on.. So what’s behind this
superstition and what role does culture play?"

Vid -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW2OZfcowp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW2OZfcowp0)

------
AnonymousRider
This is no more odd than my mother’s family’s belief that sleeping in front of
a fan causes illness & stiff muscles.

~~~
toolslive
My parents believe that 'air draught' can cause the common cold. It was
considered pseudo science in the 1960-1990s, and largely ignored by Medicine.
As it turns out, draught and cold makes you more receptive to the virus. (I
guess that's where it got its name from)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, in Poland, it seems all my family from my parents' generation and older
believe in that too. As a kid, I had endless battles with all of them over
opening a window. E.g. it would be too hot for me, but everyone would say,
"close the window, there's a draft and it'll get you sick". smh.

"Stiff neck" 'teekert mentions and "ear pain" would be mentioned as dangers of
draft too. It's so pervasive in the local culture that I even have to
occasionally remind people from my generation that common cold is a virus, not
a side effect of exposure to elements.

~~~
de_watcher
I still believe that avoiding drafts is a good thing.

When you're contaminated (and you don't know because you don't feel it yet)
you shouldn't stress your immune system with additional stuff like the
temperature differences between different body parts. Why do you want less of
blood circulation in the contaminated areas?

What is called "extreme hot" for North or East Europe is a pretty normal
temperature for human species anyway.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _What is called "extreme hot" for North or East Europe is a pretty normal
> temperature for human species anyway._

What is called "pretty normal temperature for human species" is barely
bearable for me, and has been so since I was a kid. It completely destroys my
productivity.

I recall reading here that the "productive" temperatures fall into the range I
consider comfortable, so I must not be too much of an outlier.

