Fire drills, whispers, curses, checkers – since I’m half Chinese, I know how often these things get misattributed to folks of my ancestry. The fire drill article on Wikipedia provides a pretty whitewashed version of the fire drill’s origin from the one taught me by oral history from my elders. I don’t really fault folks for latching on to these sort of exotic romanticized notions, but for heaven’s sake, do research your basic assumptions. You may find that “Chinese” meant, to turn of the century folks, really just another version of exotic, or strange, or impenetrable.