A Chinese Fire Drill

Our school had our butt handed to us by a fire alarm. It started as I was coming back from lunch and was walking up the hill toward the main entrance; its sonorous cries were unmistakable. But to my surprise the children were still playing, and no one had left the building, it seemed, as a response to the high-pitched scream and the pulsating red lights being emitted from the alarms located all over the building. The alert, whose origins remain unknown, was treated as nonchalantly as the bell by which the students are dismissed from class to class. I wondered how such a languorous response, bordering on contempt, could be suffered in our school.

No one was mobilized; no action was taken, even while the blaring sirens of yet unseen firetrucks intimated the serious nature of the situation, however nebulous it was at the time. Honestly, I didn't help the matter by filming the unfolding scene, rather than grabbing students left and right and shoving them out the door; but the prospect of being the first individual to rally everyone outside provoked a deep fear in me, the manifestation of the explicit, egregious display of dislike and scorn that many of my colleagues would love to heap lustily on me for being, once again, troublesome; and would anyone actually listen to my entreaties? And in my defense, I only began filming after I had informed the entire office staff of the necessity to evacuate the building: and they foolishly mocked my suggestion as if I were simply the court jester, the insane foreigner in the Tang court. The organizational culture checked what would have been heroic leadership!

The firemen entered the building and, I believe, told everyone to leave. On this consequential command from legitimate, formal authority, the pharisaic organization finally began to mobilize. Children poured out of the building and into the "cage" - the basketball court - and the parking lot adjacent to the school; teachers looked on, stupefied for the most part, though thankfully there were colleagues who shepherded and organized assiduously, and for whom I am, in secret, most grateful.

Twenty minutes after the alarms first rang, we had students lined up, teachers in place, and most importantly, order and discipline during a mysterious emergency rightfully restored. If this were a real fire - I may never know if there really was one - when every minute counts, who knows what our school's organizational outcome would have been!?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• chinese
• fire
• drill
• truck
• team
• brigade
• men
• school
• alarm
• secondary
• hk
• hong
• kong
• false
• students
• teachers

[jk09345568]

Uh I don't think that was a Fire Drill.

[USMCMIAMI]

@ShamefulSammy I think you mean Engrish.

[USMCMIAMI]

Chinese fire drill??????? Where's the red light? And where are all the people dancing in and out of cars?

[yourdrunkendad41]

no no no your doing it all wrong XD

[ShamefulSammy]

wait wait wait wait wait...... hes speaking english... and theyre all asian... im lost!!

[Edwardjsa]

pls, here is Hong kong , not China

[jamin108]

These are mostly the smart people of man kind

[hyperbob101]

sorry i said live and a meant leave

[hyperbob101]

why they aren't as smart as you think them to be lol no offence to any chinese here but that was stupid not to live the building

[whelenvortexr4]

do they have wheelock fire alarms in china