“Sleeping with a fan on will kill you”

Finally, I heard a folk belief from Timothy that I have heard of before. This is a superstition that I have personally grown up with. Until this project, it didn’t hit me that this statement was in fact just a superstition. Because my grandparents and parents continuously told me this, I really believed that this was true. I was always scared to sleep in a room with a fan on because I thought I would really run out of oxygen and die. However, this is only a statement that was created because in Korea, the humidity made it impossible for people to fall asleep at night so people would keep the fan on and sleep. When I searched online, I found out that this was only a belief in the Korean culture. Because I really believed in this statement, I thought it was a shared belief all over the world.

For another source for this folk belief, click this link : http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-04/why-every-korean-kid-knows-not-keep-fan-over-night

Timothy Chong is a 22 year old, senior in college, studying psychology. He is a friend I met through a club on campus. When I asked him to share some type of folklore or story he had heard growing up in a Korean household, he told me several beliefs. These can also be called superstitions. The sayings that he shared with me were told to him mostly by his parents because they are first generation parents that immigrated to the United States from Korea.

Tim told me this piece during break at work. We work together and it was a casual setting when he told me all his stories from his Korean culture.