Fears and Fan Death

Last week Andie was finishing her teacher’s adult English class. The lesson had focused on dialoging about American superstitions – and idioms and phrases derived from those beliefs (i.e. “knock on wood”). There were still about 5 minutes left of class, so in closing she decided to ask, “are there any Korean superstitions that you can tell me about?” The Korean teachers exchanged glances, clearly eager to wrap up the class and resume their busy workdays.

Finally someone spoke up, “I know that many foreigners have never heard of ‘fan death’”.  The previously dazed expressionless faces had suddenly come to life and fixated their stare on Andie and her response.

“Well, uhmm, no, I’m not really sure that I understand what you mean by ‘fan death’” Andie responded.

Another teacher jumped in and stated matter-of-factly, “Fan death happens during the summer when someone sleeps with a fan running on their body and all the windows shut.”

“What?! That’s crazy!” Andie laughed, “I have slept with a fan my entire life, and… here I am!”

The faces went from attentive to alarmed. Andie quickly realized “fan death” was not a superstition for them; this was a bona fide fear – and each of their faces conveyed the sincerity with which they believed it.

English class just got real.

Upon realizing the weight of the new topic, Andie quickly regained a serious composure. “So how exactly does an electric fan kill someone?”

With their best English the teachers offered an elaborate explanation that sounded like a complex combo of suffocation and hypothermia. They also said that public service announcements are frequently made in the summer warning about the dangers of fan death. The teachers began looking to their smart phones for defense, saying it had been scientifically proven and that Korean media frequently made reports of fatalities from “fan death”.

The dialogue was pretty animated for those last 5 minutes of class. Although a final conclusion about the legitimacy of “fan death” was never reached, it has caused us to reflect on what our fears are, and how, in many ways, all fears are just as senseless as “fan death”.

Many people way smarter than us have already written on the topic of “fear culture”. The basic definition of this concept is that certain people of a society, a.k.a. “fear peddlers”, will incite fear in the general public as a means of achieving particular goals. A simple Google search of “Korean fan death” will reveal a conspiracy theory which holds that the South Korean government created or perpetuated “fan death” as propaganda to curb the energy consumption of Korean households during the 1970s energy crisis.

the first time we saw oxygen masks in all the
subways in Seoul was a little scary

This reminded us of last spring when we were well into the interview process for our current teaching positions in Korea. At that same time American media began focusing heavily on tensions between North and South Korea. We had well-meaning friends sending us links to sensationalized news stories about North Koreas’ threats to “wipe South Korea off the map”.

We certainly don’t blame our friends for being a little concerned that we were planning to move next-door to an ‘evil empire’, but it was also important that we acknowledged nothing makes a story more intriguing than a common enemy, and that maybe there was more motivation to the U.S. propagating fear of war within its citizens. After all, it takes some convincing for people to believe the country with the greatest national debt in the world should continue having a military expenditure well over four times that of any other nation and 68x that of feared North Korea.  

Since moving here, we don't really think of North Korea that much. But many people have told us they think we are really brave, living in a foreign country, especially an Eastern country, especially Korea. 

But if we’re honest, we have different fears that we feel deeply. A mixture of our culture and our humanness has probably influenced them – and they haven’t changed much since we moved. Actually living in a foreign country only causes us to have to deal with them more regularly.

We fear looking dumb.

We fear feeling embarrassed.

We fear being insignificant.

We fear messing up.

And we sometimes fear the weird
bugs our students want to show us

We are challenged when we remember God’s most frequently repeated command to His people. Throughout scripture, God is not constantly saying to refrain from sexual immorality, or to not swear and not drink and to always go to church-y (Korean pronunciation of “church”) on Sundays. Although we are encouraged to walk in holiness and moral integrity, this is not the most recurrently stated command. Technically, and we’re speaking strictly numerically here, the number one most repeated instruction is not even to love… Rather, the thing God is constantly telling His children over and over again is to “fear not”, or “don’t be afraid”.

Some of the most inspirational and arguably only influential people throughout Church history have been those who have refused to be afraid. Those whom were so richly indwelled and empowered by the Holy Spirit that they could look even the fear of death in the face, and not be afraid because perfect love had driven out their fear (1 John 4:18).

Andie in El Salvador in 2009
where she first learned of Romero

One such person who has been particularly influential in our faith journey is Archbishop Oscar Romero. He repeatedly spoke out on behalf of the poor and abuses of human life that were happening in El Salvador. He was faced with extreme opposition by a corrupt government, eventually culminating in his assassination in 1980.

In Romero’s last homily he is quoted as saying, “Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be. ”

These words remind us that God wants those who belong to Him to be fearless. In the weaknesses of our flesh, it is the power of the Holy Spirit which gives us courage. When others see us, we want them to see a strength which can only be explained as coming from a supernatural place. This was the testimony of the early apostles, and we pray that it would continue to be our testimony.

Tertullian wrote, “A Christian is fearless.”

Then let us today be Christians.