A crisis in Korea.

When I first told my friends and family I was going to move to Korea, I was met with a fair amount of hesitation. "But what about all the problems with North Korea? Won't you feel scared for your safety? And what about the yellow dust that comes over from China? And the pollution in the city?" These were all valid concerns, but none heavy enough to keep me from coming here. And now with all the recent activity in Japan, many people have expressed concern for my safety. While, at the moment, South Korea is not receiving any repercussions from the incidents in Japan, there is a crisis in Korea that is hardly ever talked about abroad. It is a serious concern and the Korean culture views this absurdity as a leading cause of death all over not only Seoul, but South Korea. If you've never been to Korea or never encountered a Korean, you probably have never heard of this travesty.. what I'm talking about, is fan death.

The name is somewhat self explanatory, but let me describe the details of this underexposed killer. A Korean awareness website describes fan death as: "if someone is sleeping in a sealed room (windows and doors are closed) with an electric fan on, they could die." Possible causes of death caused by fans includes hypothermia ("If a fan is blowing in a sealed room then it may cause the body temperature to cool down enough to cause hypothermia. Severe Hypothermia can cause death."), suffocation ("The blowing fan somehow creates a vacuum around your face area, which prevents you from breathing correctly. The result is death.") and high levels of carbon dioxide ("fans use up oxygen and create fatal levels of carbon dioxide in the room."). Anyone who has ever lived with me or stayed at my house knows that I have slept with a fan on for years. Have I cheated death all this time? Taunting it with my constantly blowing fan blades? Koreans say "yes you have, AshRey". I say, I'm surprised I stayed serious talking about fan death for this long.

Clearly a rationale person with any knowledge of health science (or how fans work) would know that this is complete bollix. However, fan death is considered a real issue here in Korea. I have asked several of the Koreans I know about fan death and they have overwhelming assured me of it's actual existence as a silent (or at least low hummed) killer. It appears as if Koreans of all ages, professions (including doctors), and educational backgrounds believe in fan death. The Korean media actually sites it as a cause of death in newspapers and television. So, friends and family, if you don't hear from me for a while and don't see any recent facebook activity from me, I think you'll know the cause of my disappearance. Lets just hope I can continue to evade this vicious, vicious killer.