Koreans have many beliefs and superstitions that hit westerners as odd. Fan Death being the first and most famous.
Fan Death is the belief that if you fall asleep in a room where there is a fan running and the windows are closed, that you will be killed by the fan. Apparently the idea is that the fan will induce hypothermia. When foreign teachers confront this belief in their students, they often find that the belief is shared by the parents and other korean figures of authority. there have even been articles in the papers warning people of the danger and quoting high ranking doctors.
I had my students try to explain Fan Death to me. One intrepid student tried to work out the math and concluded that it was possible if the fan was pushing air at 120 km/h. When I pointed out that this was the same as sticking your head out the windows of a car that was moving full speed on the highway, he conceded that fans don't in fact push air that fast.
Still, the belief persists and will probably for generations to come. One way that I confronted this was to tell me students (truthfully) that I often sleep in a closed room with a fan running, and that it has obviously never killed me. I also pointed out that only Koreans believe this, so if it is true for Koreans, then Koreans are somehow inferior to all other people (that argument is particularly effective).
But of course, Fan Death isn't the only weird superstition.
Because I was going to Africa with only a one month layover in Canada, I had to start getting my vaccinations while I was still in Korea. It turns out that most Koreans, including the hospital works, believe that showering within 24 hours of having a vaccination can be fatal - no matter what the vaccination. When the hospital translator informed me that this was the nurse's instructions - no shower for 24 hours or I might die, I laughed.
I was certain that this was some cruel joke being played on foreigners, but checking later with my Korean coworkers showed that in fact they all believe this. Since I had to have shots on back-to-back dates, I returned to the hospital the second day, having showered. The translator was mad at me, the nurse just shrugged - hey, if I want to live dangerously, that's my choice.
Koreans also have some interesting ideas about growing up. Girls are taught that they will grow taller if they cut their hair short.
The strangest myth that I've seen, and also the most invasive, is the belief that Koreans will speak English better if they have surgery. The surgery separates the tongue from the lower jaw. This is supposed to make it easier to differentiate between "L" and "R" sounds. I've seen more than a few students who can do crazy tongue tricks because their tongues aren't anchored properly.
One of my students was so thrilled that for his tenth birthday his parents were buying him the surgery. His speaking wasn't particularly bad, and frankly, I've never met a kid who couldn't learn to differentiate the sounds with enough practice.
