Ahhhhh. It's a fan. And it's ON. So sinister looking, too. Run for your lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You don't want to become the next victim of FAN DEATH.
Oh yeah, it's a real thing. (*******Bahhhahahahaaha. No freakin way, man).
Those folks have sure got them some interesting urban legends. One in particular I think is worth mentioning (obvs: Fan Death!), but we gotta get through some things first.
Let's start out with the baby stuff: They suffer from Tetraphobia- fear of the number 4. As a result, their elevators simply have an F where the number should be. This makes no sense to me. I get that most Koreans speak English, but isn't it odd that they would chose to use our alphabet? Yes, I think so. It should say 사. Or have just the first symbol (I can't copy them individually, sorry sry). Regardless, this fear originated because the word for four in Korean (sa) is identical to their word for death (in Chinese, very similar as well). Ooooooh. How terrifying. Could you imagine being afraid to use the word deaf because it is so similar to death???? Because that's the same. Oh No! What will happen to us now? Hands on face. Gasp.
More to the point, how does that even happen? When they were getting all that language crap situated back who knows how long ago (LONG), don't you think they would have said, Hey. Why is the number four the same as the word death??? That's just silliness. Let's change it. Well, I think they should have at least.
But I mean, who am I to judge? I come from a country suffering from Triskaidekaphobia. Now that, my friends, seriously gives me the willies. And I am not ashamed to admit it.
Korean Issue 2: The color red. Pretty scary stuff. If I see red, like, I'm going to die. Apparently, in Korea this is the case. Okay, so... not exactly. But they do have a red complex, if you will. Starting after the Korean War, the color became associated with NK communism and the bloodshed of their people (I previously made this part into a joke, compliments of HS teach Dr. Dixon, that old crazy coot. But I shouldn't have. I apologize, and am officially taking it back). Naturally, not pleasant to contemplate. But they have taken it to an extreme. The only examples I can offer are: 1) instead of having a red line on the subway, they have like 3 different shades of blue, and 2) if I wrote any name at school in red pen, My Buddha was the world coming to an end.
Out with the serious and onto the ridiculous. It's time for the big guns ladies and gentleman. The show stealer itself. FAN DEATH.
Many Koreans truly believe they can be killed by a fan. Yes! I know! How crazy-mo-frazy is that?! And not in a if the fan were to break loose from the ceiling and fall on my head in the middle of the night, it might kill me kind of way. No-hoo-hooo. Like this:
Fan death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can cause the death of those inside.
Stolen straight from wiki, and I couldn't have said it better myself. This is so amazingly absurd I cannot accurately describe to what degree of seriousness this is taken. Real serious. When I moved there, I was warned about this potentially fatal incident by several people.
Hi Jacqueline, it's so good to have you here. Be careful in your apartment. Always watch out for fan death.
They are concerned about suffocation, by a vortex created when the fan is in a closed space. Suffocation by a vortex!!!!! OR, possibly it's that the fan "chops up" (wiki) the oxygen in the room until the inhabitants can no longer breath.
Fans actually come with timers so they will turn themselves off before any of these travesties have the chance to occur. Now I'm not sure if people genuinely live their lives in fear of suffocation by house fan, or if it's more along the lines of us knowing that if we say bloody mary three times in front of a bathroom mirror in the dead of night while simultaneously spinning around in circles, someone will not, in fact, come out of the mirror and kill us where we stand. But we still wouldn't do it. I have to say, even though I'm hopeful it's the latter, I'm more inclined to believe scenario numero uno.
It's just too ridiculous. I can't even discuss it anymore. If you want to read further, you'll have click here. I have to stop this madness.
No comments:
Post a Comment