posted
Ok, I'm not sure how universal this term is, so I'll give a set up of it.
You and your pals are in your car at a red light. Someone yells, "Chinese fire drill!" and everyone runs out of the car and then runs back in to sit in a different seat.
I'm not sure how old this term is, if this is just a term used in the States, or what the heck running out and in to a car to get a different seat has to do with fire drills in China. (Are you telling me people in China will run out of a burning house and then run back in, just so they can sit somewhere else while they fry to death?)
A little help here?
-------------------- I would prefer not to. My blog Posts: 4789 | From: Rhode Island | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Not sure on it's origins, but I do know my parents have told me stories about playing that game when they were in the 18-21 range... Soooo that means at least 30* years old in the Chicago area.
posted
By "universal", I meant I didn't know if, say, people in the U.K. would have a clue what it meant, or if they had a different term for it.
I've been on the planet for almost 35 years and knew it as a little kid, but when I said that around my Ma, she didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I found that confusing, since one of the opening credit sequences for Happy Days had them doing a Chinese fire drill, which leads you to believe it was around since the 50's...
-------------------- I would prefer not to. My blog Posts: 4789 | From: Rhode Island | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
i have never heard of it here in Australia and i think i saw it done one the happy days opening but i just thought of it as a teen prank sort of thing not a set thing with a name you know made up on the fly to freak the norms
-------------------- Wake up --- time to die So I'm Evil Get over it
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people Posts: 1551 | From: NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
I am familiar with the game you descrive, although I've never actually participated in one. Always seemed really stupid and pointless to me. I know that people used to say something was a "Chinese fire drill!" to describe any kind of chaotic situation, but it's been pretty suppressed by PC-ness. I even remember, it was either Ann Landers or Dear Abby got busted for using this term once and that was maybe 20 years ago or more.
I certainly wonder what brought about the origin of that phrase. I wonder if there ever was an actual Chinese fire drill that went horribly awry or if Chinese people in general were once perceived as disorganized and prone to panic. That seems way out of kilter with most Chinese people I've ever met, but many racist stereotypes don't make since.
-------------------- Your ultimate source of superfluous flummery. Posts: 595 | From: South Carolina | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
We had the term in southern Maryland. (I don't recall ever doing one. We did other idiotic things.) I think "Chinese" part was just a word to mean "absurd". Stupid and racist but not specifically aimed at Chinese. It probably could have been any foreign identity but "China" being (in our Saturday morning cartoon minds) on the other side of the world would seem "backwards" so they would do things "differently". (Only guessing.)
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I had always wondered about this phrase, having heard it without knowing what it meant.
By the way, Trish, I love your avatar .
-------------------- Me: "He's 19? Uh oh, I bought him a beer." A: "You contributed to the deliquency of a minor in drag!" "Sweet spell check: keeping drunks off the radar since 1995."- IND GodRe-AnimateGreenPorkBush Posts: 3986 | From: Illinois, jealous? | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Just last weekend in heavy town traffic I decided I was tired of drivng. The boyfriend said "ok" so we made a mad dash at a stop light. We laughed when we realized we'd just done a Chinese fire drill. The lady in the next car seemed entertained--I don't know if she was Chinese or not.
Hadn't thought about it in years. Now twice in one week!
Posts: 326 | From: Hawaii | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Interesting. CatNip and I grew up maybe 20 miles from one another. I not only know what a Chinese Fire Drill is, but I have participated in a few (the one in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue at rush hour was fun ).
CatNip has no clue what it is.
Four Kitties
ETA: Well, he knows now! He immediately suggested we should have tried it this summer when we had my uncle, aunt, and cousin in the car with us.
-------------------- If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales? Posts: 13275 | From: Kindergarten World, Massachusetts | Registered: Jul 2003
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
We did that in the 60's.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
It reminds me of a scene in "All Quiet On The Western Front" when the characters reminisce about basic training. One thing they laugh about is a game called "Change at Lohne", practising changing trains at the station of that name (which involves an underpass). So the drill sergeant (the infamous Himmelstoss) has the recruits stand by their beds and at the command "Change at Lohne!" they dive under the beds and emerge at the other side, to be repeated for as long as the sergeant wants.
-------------------- You fool! That's not a warrior, that's a banana! - a surreal moment in a role-playing game Posts: 2480 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
We used to do it on school trips with 16 people out of a single door of a ford transit minibus!
It was great fun!
-------------------- "British English speakers point to Americans adding more syllables so that they can make even more noise without actually saying anything." Llewtrah
Posts: 2235 | From: Sussex , UK | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ganzfeld: We had the term in southern Maryland. (I don't recall ever doing one. We did other idiotic things.) I think "Chinese" part was just a word to mean "absurd". Stupid and racist but not specifically aimed at Chinese. It probably could have been any foreign identity but "China" being (in our Saturday morning cartoon minds) on the other side of the world would seem "backwards" so they would do things "differently". (Only guessing.)
Sounds sensible to me. When I was in elementary school, we would "Chinese" butt in front of each other in line. However this was different than regular butting in line, as you would ask someone "Can I Chinese butt you" (sounds dirty, kinda ) and if they said yes, you would go ahead of everyone in line that was BEHIND the person you asked, but you wouldn't butt in ahead of the person who granted the request.
-------------------- "For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not to be trampled by yours. But it is impressive, and even beautiful, and, to be honest, the world would be slightly worse off if there weren't any." -Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 3239 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
My mother used to call it a "Chinese fire drill" when my sister and I, for whatever reasons, had to quickly rearrange seats in the car at a traffic light.
Later on, I realized that the idea of leaping out of a burning car, running around it, and leaping back IN, with the statement "Chinese fire drill" connected with it, wasn't exactly the most PC thing to say. I mean, what are we trying to say about Chinese people here, really? That they'll leap straight back into a burning building as soon as they reach safety? Hell, what did I know?
Later on, my sister was detailing over the telephone something called a "Chinese auction" that my family's Christmas party was having one year. I said, "Is that one of those things that's actually a little bit racist, but we don't think so because we've actually been hearing it all our lives and not realizing that it's a little bit racist, like 'Chinese Fire Drill'?"
There was a brief pause at the other end of the phone, and then my sister said, in a very small voice, "Yes..."
I didn't get to attend that year, so I still don't know what a Chinese auction is.
Love, Who? o/~ Everyone's a little bit racist... o/~
Posts: 404 | From: Portland | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Never heard of a chinese fire drill but there's plenty of comparable terms using other countries as the butt, usually implying something fake or unreliable;
Dutch Courage Indian Summer Welsh Rarebit (rabbit) Chinese Whispers
...to name a few that come to mind. I would have thought the 'chineseness' of the fire drill comes from the same tradition.
-------------------- But of course, I could be wrong. Posts: 858 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I believe a Chinese auction is where you have a bunch of presents. The first person chooses a present. The second person can either choose a new present or take the first person's present (in which case the first person chooses again), and so on down the line. The big issue is whether you open the presents before the end or not!
Posts: 264 | From: Washington, DC | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Top Kat: I believe a Chinese auction is where you have a bunch of presents. The first person chooses a present. The second person can either choose a new present or take the first person's present (in which case the first person chooses again), and so on down the line. The big issue is whether you open the presents before the end or not!
Ah.
They were doing this at the holiday party the FOLLOWING year, which I was able to attend. Only this time, they were calling it a "Yankee swap."
Makes me wonder if someone in our family is in the PC police and called them on it...
posted
"It is my understanding that this phrase originated in the early 1900s. It came from an naval incident where a ship officered by the British and crewed by the Chinese set up a fire drill for fire in the engine room. In the event of a fire the crew was to draw water from the starboard side, take to the engine room and throw it on the fire. Another crew in the engine room was to take the thrown water and throw it over the port side. When the drill was called the first moments went according to plan then it got confused.The crew began drawing the water from the staroard side and runing over to the port side and throwing the water over, by-passing the the engine room completely. Thus the expression "Chinese Fire Drill" entered our lexicon as meaning a large confused action by individuals accomplishing nothing ---- R. Berg on December 16, 2002"
My Dad was Navy. I can believe that a bunch a navy sailors got themselves all confused and tossed water at nothing.
But then.. these are the same guys (Navy Guys) that "re-aquisitioned" an Air Force plane in Guam.. "Plane? What plane? We never saw any plane. You sure you left it here?" (during war time hard to get parts delivered, this happened all the time, you leave something laying around long enough and someone will pick it up and use it.
-------------------- Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing; simply moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is common sense dancing. Posts: 12 | From: Bellevue, NE | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
A Chinese fire drill is a harmless prank, or perhaps just an expression of high spirits, popular in the United States during the 1960s. It is performed when a car is stopped at a red traffic light, at which point all of the car's occupants get out, run around the car, and return to their own (or other) seats. Chinese Fire Drills are sometimes executed when one needs to get something from the trunk of a car.
-------------------- Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing; simply moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is common sense dancing. Posts: 12 | From: Bellevue, NE | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Dutch Courage -- False courage acquired by drinking liquor, as in 'He had a quick drink to give him Dutch courage'. This idiom alludes to the reputed heavy drinking of the Dutch, and was first referred to in Edmund Waller's Instructions to a Painter (1665): "The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose, Disarm'd of that from which their courage grows."
Indian Summer -- A period of mild, sunny weather occurring in late autumn, usually following a seasonable cold spell. For example, 'We had two whole days of Indian summer this year, and then it turned cold again.' [Late 1700s] Coincides with St. Martin's Summer -- a season of mild, damp weather frequently prevailing during late autumn in England and the Mediterranean countries; -- so called from St. Martin's Festival, occurring on November 11.
Welsh Rarebit -- A dish made of melted cheese, milk or cream, seasonings, and sometimes ale, served hot over toast or crackers. Sometimes called Welsh Rabbit. You can get the recipe online.
Chinese Whispers -- the game of Telephone, When a story is told from person to person, especially if it is gossip or scandal, it inevitably gets distorted and exaggerated. (British English in origin)
Most of this you can find on Dictionary.com, or a quick search on Wikipedia.
-------------------- Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing; simply moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is common sense dancing. Posts: 12 | From: Bellevue, NE | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by sandarwarrior: Welsh Rarebit -- A dish made of melted cheese, milk or cream, seasonings, and sometimes ale, served hot over toast or crackers. Sometimes called Welsh Rabbit. You can get the recipe online.
This is a dish that my father often made for us, and he always told us that it was called "Welsh Rabbit" because the Welsh either couldn't afford rabbit or weren't allowed to hunt them (since the king/queen owned them). I always thought it more likely they weren't allowed to hunt rabbit, but OTOH my father wasn't the type to pass up the opportunity to relay a tall tale or twelve
Anyone with easy access to an OED would be more than welcome to chime in, of course.
[Hijack off]
-------------------- "I'm singing and deranged!" Posts: 239 | From: Georgia | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Well, there's also the lesser-known Scotch rabbit, so the rule about not hunting rabbits must have applied more widely. Rabbits weren't native to Britain before the conquest, so the term in whatever language can't have existed before the eleventh century, and I don't know of any law exclusive to Welsh bunny poachers after that date. But the term itself doesn't show up, according to the OED, until the eighteenth century, "rabbit" some 50 years earlier than "rarebit," which seems the result of folk etymology. The Welsh are credited with being very fond of toasted cheese as early as the 1540s, but in Welsh it's "caws wedi' i bobi" (cheese that has been roasted) rather than "cwningen Cymreig" (Welsh Rabbit).
Psst: Ieuan: feel free to correct my grammar and spelling.
-------------------- ~~Ai am in mai prrrrrraime!~~ Posts: 10111 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Top Kat: I believe a Chinese auction is where you have a bunch of presents. The first person chooses a present. The second person can either choose a new present or take the first person's present (in which case the first person chooses again), and so on down the line. The big issue is whether you open the presents before the end or not!
I've heard of a similar "game" referred to as "Dirty Santa."
Posts: 885 | From: Florida | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by sandarwarrior: Dutch Courage -- False courage acquired by drinking liquor, as in 'He had a quick drink to give him Dutch courage'. This idiom alludes to the reputed heavy drinking of the Dutch, and was first referred to in Edmund Waller's Instructions to a Painter (1665): "The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose, Disarm'd of that from which their courage grows."
Indian Summer -- A period of mild, sunny weather occurring in late autumn, usually following a seasonable cold spell. For example, 'We had two whole days of Indian summer this year, and then it turned cold again.' [Late 1700s] Coincides with St. Martin's Summer -- a season of mild, damp weather frequently prevailing during late autumn in England and the Mediterranean countries; -- so called from St. Martin's Festival, occurring on November 11.
Welsh Rarebit -- A dish made of melted cheese, milk or cream, seasonings, and sometimes ale, served hot over toast or crackers. Sometimes called Welsh Rabbit. You can get the recipe online.
Chinese Whispers -- the game of Telephone, When a story is told from person to person, especially if it is gossip or scandal, it inevitably gets distorted and exaggerated. (British English in origin)
Most of this you can find on Dictionary.com, or a quick search on Wikipedia.
"Russian Telegrams" is a variant on Chinese Whispers.
"French Leave" - being absent without an excuse. The French equivalent is filer a l'Anglaise.
-------------------- You fool! That's not a warrior, that's a banana! - a surreal moment in a role-playing game Posts: 2480 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
In an episode of 7th Heaven, Lucy and Mary do a Chinese Fire Drill...except they omitted the word "Chinese."
Posts: 885 | From: Florida | Registered: May 2004
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posted
"Chinese Fire Drill" is also an improv game. Four chairs are set up in rows of two, to resemble the seats in a car. Each player assumes a character with a very distinct personality, physical traits, etc. The characters begin a scene. When a bell is rung by someone outside the scene, the players "get out" of the "car" and sit in different seats. Each player assumes the character that had previously been sitting in the seat he lands in. The scene continues as before until all four players have played each of the four characters.
-------------------- Warning: This post may contain irony, sarcasm, satire, and/or mockery. Wear protective gear when using this post. Posts: 236 | From: Brooklyn, NY | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Slight hijack but another couple of derogatory terms using nationality are Capot Anglais (French) and French Letter (English) - both refer to Condoms. Condom is a town in SW France...
-------------------- Many a True Word Spoken in Jest! Posts: 73 | From: Devon, UK | Registered: Nov 2005
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