# Chinese Fire Drill **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2003, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182 "2003-01-02T10:20:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CrimsonHelix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b782af/32.png) [@CrimsonHelix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrimsonHelix)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/1 "2003-01-02T10:20:40Z")
So, you know where 2 people jump out of the car at a stop light and switch seats (driver to passenger, passenger to driver). I have always heard this called a Chinese Fire Drill…does anyone know why? ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/2 "2003-01-02T10:25:04Z")
Not a good term to have around, in this day and age. From [wordwizard:](http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=3202) > [@](#): > > “Chinese fire drill” seems to be one of the few (fortunately) of these phrases that have survived in popular usage. Aside from being a synonym for “extreme confusion,” incidentally, “Chinese fire drill” is also the popular name for a prank long-beloved of college students, wherein 4 or 5 of the little matriculators stop their car at a red light, jump out, run around the car and then hop back in, the point (such as it is) being to complete the procedure before the light changes to green. > The earliest written citation for “Chinese fire drill” reported by the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang dates only to 1952, although William Safire is quoted as maintaining that it was commonly heard in Brooklyn just after World War I. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/3 "2003-01-02T12:00:58Z")
In some early episodes of happy days with the rock aroud the clock theme at the beginning it shows a group doing this in a yellow hot rod , The meaning of chienese fire drill that I knew of refered to doing something with a large number of people that ended in chaos and confusion like : " much of traffic after the parade was so confused it looked like a chinese fire drill" ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/4 "2003-01-02T12:08:15Z")
Chinese was commonly used in those days to refer to something badly made or confusing. Although it is of course vaguely offensive it probably comes from the practice of Asian nations to utilise wetsern practices and words without fully understanding them. Today we tend to use ‘Engrish’ and other more specific terms to mean pretty much the same thing but without the direct racial implication. The use of ‘Chinese’ in this way still exists in phrases such as ‘Chinese whisper’. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/5 "2003-01-02T13:10:06Z")
Does this phrase have nothing at all to do with an actual firedrill? I’ve often heard this used to describe people lined up in such a way that they could pass buckets of water quickly between a water tank and something on fire. Also applied to any commodity that can be broken down into easily handled “chunks” so that a line of people could transport it more efficiently, such as sandbags when building a dike. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/6 "2003-01-02T13:15:40Z")
Such examples you gave aren’t actually “fire drills”, **Attrayant**. The phrase is properly used when there is a confused evacuation, something that seems to be to without order. I haven’t heard a bucket brigade be called a “fire drill”. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/146182/7 "2003-01-02T13:35:16Z")
Never heard the phrase “bucket brigade”. Somebody within earshot once called this thing we discuss a fire drill. I heard it, and I guess it stuck. BTW, I’m thinking “fire drill” from the POV of the firemen (or whoever arrives to put out the fire), not the people running out of the burning structure. That’s why “fire drill” made sense to me.