Fan Death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

by f_kai • 6 years ago

30 11 6 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

Italians have a similar superstition about being hit by gusts of wind, 'colpo d'aria'. Often sickness are attributed to it, but not death like this article.

Ayesh• 6 years ago

I've been living in Vietnam for almost a year, and there is a crazy amount of superstitions here. Some of them are eastern Asian, and some were proudly invented here.

- Number 4 is an unlucky number. 6 and 8 are lucky numbers. In fact, most wifi passwords here are 66668888 or 88888888.

- Don't stick the chopsticks in rice in the middle.

- Don't flip the fish as it mimics the fisherman's boat flipping.

- Burn a ton of stuff to help the diseased at Tet holiday.

- Don't boil the same water more than once.

SommaRaikkonen• 6 years ago

For that 4th bullet, did you mean "hóa vàng"? I think the paper stuff that's burned symbolizes things that will be carried to the afterlife - where their ancestors/dead loved ones currently are. This is why you may find many modern objects like phones, cars or even houses in small paper forms ready to be hóa vàng-ed.

seekup• 6 years ago

i'm not any kind of Asian but I believe #2, chopsticks sticking out of your rice, is rooted in a belief that it resembles the incense burners that would be set up at a funeral - a sort of bad luck charm.

evanreichard• 6 years ago

I know in Chinese "four" is pronounced: sì (四) - which sounds very similar to "death": sǐ (死).

There's some additional context about the numerology here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerology

aaron695• 6 years ago

Don't boil the same water more than once.

This is common in the West [1], I do it, probably picked up from the Chinese around tea. I've also seen ice nerds talking about it in a positive way.

My conspiracy is when you have dirty water any memes that encourage boiling more water will proliferate. (Since you'll drink the old boiled water over collecting more from a stream)

[1] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23144234?searchTe...

credit_guy• 6 years ago

When I was a kid, my parents held the belief that if you keep lily flowers in a vase in a room with the windows closed overnight, and you sleep in that room, you will get a headache. The belief went on to state there is a small chance of death, for the presumed cause that the flowers somehow consume the oxygen in the room. As an adult, I never revisited this superstition; I don't buy flowers often, but my wife does. For some reason, neither one of us ever buys lilies. It could be that we both hold a remnant of this superstition deep inside our subconscious.

harpiaharpyja• 6 years ago

Well photosynthesis stops at night but metabolic activity doesn't, so presumably they consume oxygen. No idea how much though.

whythre• 6 years ago

Plants consume CO2 and ‘exhale’ oxygen. They don’t consume it.

copperwater69• 6 years ago

I lived in an ashram for 3 months in south india. There were a lot of superstitions but the ones which were strangest to me was not being allowed to cut your nails after sundown and to never step over a sleeping dog.

Fan Death

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