Fire Drill

This morning we had a fire drill at school. In Canada a fire drill is like a big free-for-all... an event that usually takes up most of a class, and therefore is pretty popular.

In China, of course you wouldn't want to take away any time away from the Math lesson, so the fire drill is held before school (instead of the daily morning exercise session). In Canada, everyone knows it's just a drill and therefore it can be a bit rowdy... here in China however, we had the firetruck come out for the event, smoke bombs detonated in hallways, and all students jogging in and out of the buildings in perfect single-file lines. Then the head fireman got up on stage and gave a speech to the students while they were standing out on the track... the whole event was videotaped, photographed, and had it's own special banner going across the outdoor stage. It took less than 15 minutes. Very impressive!