Chincha? #1 - Fans

Sometimes life in Korea is crazy. Really crazy. In the last few weeks of my stay I'm beginning a new series of entries entitled "Chincha?" (which means really? in Korean). These entries will attempt to share with you a little dose of strange so that when I arrive home you can better understand why I act the way I do.

Recently my students were asked to respond to the following prompt:

In Korea there is a widespread belief that sleeping with an electric fan can cause death. What evidence is used to support this phenomenon?

I would like to assert that Fan Death is a real cause for concern here. The lesson was supposed to be teaching them about being critical of the news that they read or see, as there were news stories asserting the dangers of sleeping in a closed room with a fan. Here are some of the responses I received. Seriously. (edited slightly for coherence but DEFINITELY not context)

"If you turned on electric fan in sealed room, you can't breathe O2 and you breathe CO2 and you could die."

"Person's body temp is 36.5. When only one degree is deleted it is harmful for body. If we sleep with fan our body temp will go down so we will die."

"Fan takes fresh air and if you turn on fan in closed room there'll be no fresh air left."

And, my personal favorite:

"Fan make tornado ---> suck air
temperature down
O2 to CO2 ---> worse than a candle"

Mind you that these are middle school students. When pressed for real, actual evidence and when confronted with the reality that fans make wind and do NOT change the chemical composition of air, they resorted to the old standby "My mom said so". At least they're listening to their parents.