Chinese Firedrill

Secondary Title: Why didn't I have my camera?!

On Monday, I dropped Carson off at my friend Arlene's house before work. Arlene watches Carson for me every Monday and Wednesday afternoon while I teach English at a Chinese middle school. (That's a whole story in and of itself.) Arlene has a little girl who is just one month younger than Carson, and they have a lot of fun playing together.

This particular Monday, as I was coming out of her apartment building and getting back on my bike, I was suddenly passed by a hoard of 10-15 uniformed doormen running and carrying fire extinguishers. (All the complexes here have doormen/guards in official looking uniforms.) They rushed, one after the other, into Arlene's building. At first, I was alarmed--should I go back and get Carson? Was the building burning down? Ultimately I decided that because the men were smiling, there couldn't be anything TOO wrong. I kept glancing back at the building as I rode away but never saw any signs of smoke.

When I asked Arlene about it later, she said she'd never been alerted of any problems.

This morning, as I was biking to school with Austin and our friend Carrie, we saw several more of these uniformed guards and this time they were hauling a long firehose from a truck to....somewhere further down the sidewalk. No fire. Everything's frozen, so I don't think they were watering anything. When we passed by again later, there was no sign that they had been there at all.

Perhaps there really is something to this Chinese Firedrill business?