# "Chinese fire drill" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148 "2011-11-07T06:55:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/1 "2011-11-07T06:55:36Z")
Ever do one? Is there now a more PC term for it? I think I vaguely recall doing it once in High School, but we also once drove backwards (as in - in reverse) through the Burger King drive thru after ordering a packet of ketchup and 4 straws. HO HO HO so clever. \<- Now? Pull your pants up and get off my lawn! It was profound-fully less-satisfying than forking\* someone. We found forking hysterical. Even when the victim called us out on it. (My boss and my Orchestra teacher totally knew it was me.) \*When you buy jumbo packs of plastic forks and surreptitiously (with friends) stab as many as possible into someone’s lawn in the cover of darkness as fast as you can then drive away screaming hysterically. I’ve heard tell of people "Little Debby"ing people’s cars. Buying those oatmeal sandwiches with the cream filling, spreading them apart, and slapping them all over someone’s car. EXPENSIVE! What Hijinx did you get up to as a kid? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/2 "2011-11-07T08:07:19Z")
I don’t think I even know what a Chinese fire drill is. I opened the thread expecting it to be some traditional method of starting fires. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/3 "2011-11-07T08:14:13Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I don’t think I even know what a Chinese fire drill is. Heh. Red light. Everyone in the car jumps out, rotates 45 degrees so everyone is in a completely different seat. NO IDEA how the term came up. Teenage obnoxiousness in a nutshell. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/4 "2011-11-07T09:45:32Z")
I was going to post about how we used to get a big roll of cellophane and use it to wrap up somebody’s car like a mummy. But then I saw the part where you said you wanted stuff we did as kids. We were doing this to each other at work as supposed adults. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/5 "2011-11-07T11:14:51Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > Heh. Red light. Everyone in the car jumps out, rotates 45 degrees so everyone is in a completely different seat. NO IDEA how the term came up. Teenage obnoxiousness in a nutshell. I’ve the strangest feeling I’ve asked that question before, and since completely forgotten the answer… ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/6 "2011-11-07T11:54:06Z")
Prank phone calling was the most hijinx-y thing I did. We had an extension in our basement, so we could mess around without Mom hearing us. And FYI for the young 'uns, there was no such thing as Caller ID or \*69 back in the 60s, so you weren’t going to get caught. We did the usual stupid ones: “Is your refrigerator running? Then you’d better go catch it!!!” 😃 Yeah, we were a laugh riot! One time, we used a neighbor’s newspaper to scoop up dog poo and left it on their front porch. We thought it was hilarious the next day when we saw that paper in the gutter. The thing is, I don’t know why we picked that particular neighbor. I babysat for them - they were my meal ticket!! dumb kids… For me, that was the extent of it. I was generally too much of a goody goody wuss to try anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/7 "2011-11-07T12:42:52Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > Heh. Red light. Everyone in the car jumps out, rotates 45 degrees so everyone is in a completely different seat. NO IDEA how the term came up. Teenage obnoxiousness in a nutshell. Huh. Thanks for explaining/reminding, I was thinking of the \*Bavarian \*Fire Drill (wave an important looking piece of paper and otherwise confidently act like someone with official authority when you’re not. Which works surprisingly well.) ---
**Author:** ![simple\_homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@simple\_homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simple_homer)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/8 "2011-11-07T12:43:48Z")
Ok, so does anyone know why it is called a “Chinese fire drill” ? I am in China, and I have never seen anything like that here… ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/9 "2011-11-07T13:25:33Z")
> [@simple\_homer](#): > > Ok, so does anyone know why it is called a “Chinese fire drill” ? Looks like it’s partially a racial slur. > **[Chinese fire drill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_fire_drill)** > > "Chinese fire drill" is a predominantly American slang term for a situation that is chaotic or confusing, possibly due to poor or misunderstood instructions. It may also be known as a Polish fire drill or, increasingly, simply as a fire drill. > The phrase has been critiqued due to it associating "Chinese" as a descriptor with incompetence, chaos or otherwise poor quality. > The term is generally regarded as having originated with British troops either during or prior to WWI, with the phrase then s... > [@](#): > > Around the time of World War I, British English’s adjective Chinese had a slang meaning of “confused, disorganized, or difficult to understand.” I say ‘partially’, because I suspect the ‘difficult to understand’ bit is more to do with the language barrier, but looking at the examples of similar usage on that page, it seems that the implication of confusion etc is a racial stereotype. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/10 "2011-11-07T13:40:01Z")
Tore open a neighbourhood’s worth of raked and bagged leaves, from the curb awaiting pick up, and spread them, 2’ deep, on the one lawn without any trees. Thought we were hilarious! ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/11 "2011-11-07T14:47:46Z")
We ranged from the dim-witted (bashing mailboxes with lead pipes or ball bats) to the witted (which is slightly less destructive than the dim-witted activity) leaning out of the car and dragging garbage cans to spread the trash all over the street to the epitome of wit (in our case) of leaving notes on windshields. The notes said things like: “I pissed on your door handle!” and one included a childish drawing of a dragonlike bird with the words, “This bird will come to life and claw your eyes out if you don’t send me $50” or some idiotic amount. ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/12 "2011-11-07T15:12:32Z")
My friend and I painted an old camaro that was destined for the junkyard. We used housepaint. Just poured the buckets on. The owner used that as an excuse to get a free paint job…even though the car was originally a rusted pile of crap. And really was destined for the junkyard. So our parents ended up having to pay $1400 for a paint job on a car that had no paint to begin with, all because the owner reacted in a “Sweet, that’s my ticket to free paint job!” Well…all because we painted the car…I guess. ☹ Also, we threw very small pebbles at the windows of a local preschool. The windows were covered with a heavy duty wire mesh - either for keeping kids in or keeping burglars out. Anyway, one of the small pebbles went through the mesh and put a pinhole crack in the window. It became town-wide news that someone was on the rampage with a BB gun shooting windows out. They never found out that it was us, or that it was a very lucky throw with a tiny pebble and not a BB gun. Took months for that rumor to go away though. :smack: My friend and I (same friend for all the stories…) were playing a game where we would stand between parked cars on the side of the road, and wait for a passing car. Then we would jump out and act as though the car had hit us by dramatically flailing about, like we were thrown to the side by the car or something. Then we’d go hide and watch the driver get out in a panic and look for the kid he hit, or watch him speed up and drive away. (It happened quite a bit actually.) Well one time it was an unmarked cop car. I was thrown in the back and taken home-all of 350 yards around the corner…and luckily not arrested. Beaten and grounded, but not arrested. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/13 "2011-11-07T15:33:21Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Looks like it’s partially a racial slur. > > [Chinese fire drill - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_fire_drill) > I say ‘partially’, because I suspect the ‘difficult to understand’ bit is more to do with the language barrier, but looking at the examples of similar usage on that page, it seems that the implication of confusion etc is a racial stereotype. Perhaps a similar meaning to that of the little toy “Chinese handcuffs”? OTOH, ‘Chinese’ also seems to mean an alternate version of something, as with Chinese jacks, jumprope, and yo-yo. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/14 "2011-11-07T15:37:25Z")
When I was a kid, we called it Chinese Fire Drill because we pictured such a crowded country having massive chaos in evacuating a building, something the car sweat swap prank emulated. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/15 "2011-11-07T15:52:39Z")
We would do a variation of the fire drill, in which everyone would jump out of the car and run around, but we would invariably lock one person out of the car (whoever didn’t get in quick enough) and just drive off, leaving them in the street. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/16 "2011-11-07T16:03:43Z")
Yep, we did it, way back when. And that’s what we called it. ---
**Author:** ![Sally\_Mander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/17 "2011-11-07T16:12:27Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > I’ve heard tell of people "Little Debby"ing people’s cars. Buying those oatmeal sandwiches with the cream filling, spreading them apart, and slapping them all over someone’s car. EXPENSIVE! It’s cheaper if you use store-brand Oreo-type cookies and just do the windows. Not that I know from experience or anything… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/18 "2011-11-07T16:19:54Z")
I hadn’t thought of these things for years, and then just the other day I was taking my high-school kids to some event at school, and the car in front of us emptied at a stop sign, they all ran around, etc., everyone laughing hysterically. The things that amuse you when you’re 15. ---
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/19 "2011-11-07T16:43:48Z")
Ah, Chinese Fire Drills, staple of high school and college. Clockwise, counter clockwise, do we switch across the back or the front, can you do the Miami Vice hood-slide? Stylistic choices abound. 'Nell and I would pick up our friend’s tiny Honda Civic, move it behind a pickup, and then watch our buddy frantically search for her car after school. Good times. I thought it was hilarious to order a double McChicken in the drive-through. It really seemed to confound them. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148/20 "2011-11-07T16:55:03Z")
A homerun at the Polo Grounds over the 248-foot fence used to be called a Chinese Home Run. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-fire-drill/602148.md?page=2)