Will Miss #422 - "death by fan" warnings

Definitely the wrong kind of fan and not about fun...

You can read all of the books and web sites you want about a foreign culture, but chances are that you'll find the reality will catch you off guard sooner rather than later. One day, you'll be talking about the summer heat and how to best cope with it and a student will say that it's just too cold using the air conditioner all night. Rather reasonably, you'll suggest using an electric fan. This will often elicit a wide-eyed look and you'll be told that you shouldn't use a fan while you sleep because you might suffocate. I've told students time and time again that, when I lived in the U.S., I slept all night with a fan in my window and lived to tell the tale, but they still are too superstitious to use one themselves. Sweating the night away is preferable to risking having all of the breathable air sucked out of their lungs by a demon apparatus. 

I'll miss the incredulous looks I get when I say I sleep with an electric fan running and hearing that I'm flirting with death by doing so. 

Will Miss #238 - fans

You can buy fans anywhere in the world, but Japan is the (unofficial) home of fans and they are closely associated with the culture. Who hasn't seen the image of the beautiful Japanese woman holding a fan in front of her? Every summer, a wide variety of attractive, cheap, and free fans are available. You find plastic ones featuring ads being given away on the streets for advertising as well as special promotional ones being offered at festivals and shops. You can buy many different kinds at 100 yen shops, or visit some of the better souvenir shops and buy more elaborate ones. In the summer, they are a compact and ecologically sound way to cool yourself down, and they are just plain nice to display if you are of a mind to do so. They also make nifty souvenirs for folks back home.

I'll miss the abundant Japanese fans.