Chinese Fire Drills

The other day on the way home from the factory we were talking about weird things we did in mutual. In my ward, one of our favorites was the Chinese Fire Drill on the nights we had sports.

For those of you who don't know what this is: Our leader who was driving would get somewhere they needed to stop (never a busy road!), mostly on the back roads dropping girls off, and would say "Chinese Fire Drill" and we would all get out of the car, run around it, and pile back in. It was more fun when it was icy out and we had to be careful about running around the car.

Well this came up and we decided to look into. Read the full thing here on wikipedia.

Short version: it originally was used to describe a chaotic situation.
It originated in the Navy. But the best part was this little tidbit:


"It is alleged to have originated when a ship staffed by British officers and a Chinese crew practiced a fire drill in the engine room. The bucket brigade drew water from the starboard side, took it to the engine room, and threw it onto the fire. A separate crew hauled the accumulated water to the main deck and heaved the water over the port side. The drill went according to plan until the orders became confused in translation. The bucket brigade began to draw the water from the starboard side, run over to the port side and then throw the water overboard, bypassing the engine room completely.^[10]"

Awesome, right?

Having lived in China for 17 months now, I hope I don't ever have to be in a real Chinese Fire Drill. They aren't very good at moving as a crowd. You know that Black Friday death statistic? It would be tons worse here. You could get trampled to death here - without a sale at Wal-mart.