The bathroom fan

From Seth’s Blog:

In our office, the kitchen exhaust fan blows the smoke from the cooktop–back into the kitchen.

It’s a closed loop, a palliative, a noisy device that doesn’t do much except make you feel like at least you’re trying.

Most of the exhaust fans in our lives are actually part of a closed system. The detritus, pain or actions we share don’t go very far away before they turn around and head back toward us.

The fan in the master bathroom in our apartment in Hsinchu was making an awful noise one day and eventually quit working. Upon installing a replacement we realized that the fan didn’t actually lead to anywhere – it simply circulated the humid air to the space above our false ceiling. I thought it was hilarious and synonymous with much of the problems I experienced in local culture – a face saving measure to cover for the inability to meet a requirements spec. Of course this resulted in more black mold and a rusty fan prone to failure.