technomythonoia!

Koreans don't flush their toilet paper.
And yes, I know this is not an entirely unique practice. In Costa Rica it was the same, as in most parts of Egypt. But that was because these countries have an aging infrastructure that was built on a third world budget.
In Korea, they have plasma TV's in their elevators, and I'm pretty sure nothing is more than 5 years old.

I'm not even kidding. This is the wikimapia view of my house. The satellite image must be a little outdated, because its just a giant field. Which means there is no way that the pipes can't support my toilet paper. And yet, my boss and landlady both warned me that if i flushed, i would absolutely clog the pipes. (my landlady warned me by punching me multiple times in the arm, but I'll save the violent vibrancy of aged Korean women for another post.)

So why won't Koreans flush their toilet paper?
Although i can't come up with an accurate name for the phenomena, (technomythonoia?) I'm willing to bet it's somehow related to fan death.
(fan death, of course, is when "an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.")

This isn't to say American's don't' suffer from some form of the same ailment - i would literally run out of the room after turning on the microwave before i went to college. But I am struggling to find an American equivalent at the same level of absurdity as fan death.

And i am similarly struggling to figure out why the multitude of warning signs needed by a technologically paranoid society have to be animated.
(I am using animated here in both senses of the word. Yes, we use 'illustrations' in our warnings, but they are almost always passive. If you look closely, you can see little cartoon tears (sweat drops?) flying off the people in the second and third panel of the earthquake warning.)




Life's mysteries know no limit...