Well, they also classify suicides as "fan death", saving face is a big thing in that part of the world . Most likely they do know the real cause but chose not to release it if it's not suspicious.
This "fan-death-to-cover-up-suicide" is ABSOLUTELY false and is my greatest pet peeve with the English internet. Someone heard East Asians like to save face and came up with this dehumanizing and derogatory theory.
Misconceptions of "fan death" predates any suicidal trends in Korea and if there was any connection to suicides we koreans would be the ones talking about it non-stop.
> Most likely the do know the real cause but chose not to release it
NO!!!! we are regular people with regular emotions, too. Stereotypes you see on the internet are often outdated by decades. In this case it was never even true in the first place.
I once asked a Korean MD/PhD about fan deaths. I was expecting her to say, "Oh, people don't really believe in that. It's just something a few grandmas worry about." What she actually said was, "Oh yeah, that's really dangerous."
A lot of SK's foreigner workforce are unskilled laborers from poorer countries. So one explanation could be work related but unspecified due to company reputation or that no one simply cares about poor foreign workers.
I am sure it's more benign than that, although of course exploiting foreign labor is an issue. South Korea has problems but it is a liberal democracy whose economy does not depend on cheap manual labor like the UAE; if large numbers of foreign workers were being killed on the job, a Korean citizen or rights group would blow the whistle.
I believe South Korea (like most industrialized countries) does not offer single-payer health insurance to most foreigners, who either have to purchase it themselves or go without. It seems likely that a large number of foreign residents get sick and never go to a doctor. Without a medical history it's not easy to determine a cause of natural death in an older sick person, even with a good autopsy.
No, they offer single-payer healthcare to legal permanent residents. There is a significant gap with temporary residents, including people shuffling back and forth on work visas which might get shadily overextended with under-the-table work, or undocumented immigrants (no reason to use a dishonest and inflammatory term like “taxpaying foreigners” when you mean “legal residents,” paying taxes is not the issue).
This is South Korea we're talking about here, not some 3rd world ship scrapping yard. 4/10 foreign person deaths being workplace deaths would be insane when you consider how many foreign workers are employed in mundane service industry jobs with basically no risk of dying on the job.
A huge proportion of foreign workers in SK are in either the manufacturing, construction, or agriculture sectors, often with poor working/living conditions.
Just to add context: "unknown causes" was the leading cause of death for Korean citizens as well in 2023 and not just foreigners.
Half of deaths with "unknown causes" is dying from old age. Other factors include SID, etc.
The article says:
This figure is significantly higher compared to the number of deaths among Korean nationals.
With no old medical journal at hand for foreigners I would anticipate 'unknown death reason' to be higher?
Well, they also classify suicides as "fan death", saving face is a big thing in that part of the world . Most likely they do know the real cause but chose not to release it if it's not suspicious.
This "fan-death-to-cover-up-suicide" is ABSOLUTELY false and is my greatest pet peeve with the English internet. Someone heard East Asians like to save face and came up with this dehumanizing and derogatory theory. Misconceptions of "fan death" predates any suicidal trends in Korea and if there was any connection to suicides we koreans would be the ones talking about it non-stop.
> Most likely the do know the real cause but chose not to release it
NO!!!! we are regular people with regular emotions, too. Stereotypes you see on the internet are often outdated by decades. In this case it was never even true in the first place.
I once asked a Korean MD/PhD about fan deaths. I was expecting her to say, "Oh, people don't really believe in that. It's just something a few grandmas worry about." What she actually said was, "Oh yeah, that's really dangerous."
Fan death predating the rise in suicide trends makes it seem more likely to me that fan death was used to obscure a suicide.
What is your perspective on what it is?
[flagged]
[dead]
"Old age" isn't a cause of death? Maybe more appropriate is "Korea doesn't care about tracking the cause of death."
That, or they are butchering foreigners and old people over there.
Old age isn't a cause of death. It can be a contributing factor, but it isn't an immediate cause.
A lot of SK's foreigner workforce are unskilled laborers from poorer countries. So one explanation could be work related but unspecified due to company reputation or that no one simply cares about poor foreign workers.
I am sure it's more benign than that, although of course exploiting foreign labor is an issue. South Korea has problems but it is a liberal democracy whose economy does not depend on cheap manual labor like the UAE; if large numbers of foreign workers were being killed on the job, a Korean citizen or rights group would blow the whistle.
I believe South Korea (like most industrialized countries) does not offer single-payer health insurance to most foreigners, who either have to purchase it themselves or go without. It seems likely that a large number of foreign residents get sick and never go to a doctor. Without a medical history it's not easy to determine a cause of natural death in an older sick person, even with a good autopsy.
Most industrialized countries do offer single payer healthcare to taxpaying foreigners, perhaps after a reasonable period of time.
No, they offer single-payer healthcare to legal permanent residents. There is a significant gap with temporary residents, including people shuffling back and forth on work visas which might get shadily overextended with under-the-table work, or undocumented immigrants (no reason to use a dishonest and inflammatory term like “taxpaying foreigners” when you mean “legal residents,” paying taxes is not the issue).
This is South Korea we're talking about here, not some 3rd world ship scrapping yard. 4/10 foreign person deaths being workplace deaths would be insane when you consider how many foreign workers are employed in mundane service industry jobs with basically no risk of dying on the job.
A huge proportion of foreign workers in SK are in either the manufacturing, construction, or agriculture sectors, often with poor working/living conditions.
https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2024/06/26/IL43VM...
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-30/south-...
https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap100_m.pdf
Well, people in those jobs aren't very likely to be showing up on either side of that ratio.
[dead]
The obvious follow-up question would be: is there a correlation between specific nationalities and the fraction of "unknown cause" deaths?
Fans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
Whenever it’s simply stated we are talking about Korea, I always assume we are talking about North Korea: the only and best Korea.