The Chinese Firedrill


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September 18th 2010
Published: September 18th 2010
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Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. For instance if you wake up to the sound of twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you will know that your day will be a splendid one. If you wake up to the sound of church bells, and find yourself in a fairly big regular bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of hot tea and toast on a plate, you will know that your day will be O.K. And if you wake up to the sound of somebody banging two metal pots together, and find yourself in a small bunk bed, with a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all, you will know that your day will be horrid.



Lemony Snicket wrote that in his book, The Miserable Mill. He didn't speculate on what your day would be like if you woke up to the sound of air-raid sirens in small-town China, which is how I was awakened today.

Why they went off today, at 10:03 am, for no discernible reason, I have yet to discover. But isn't it nice to know that 1. China has the capability to run these sirens, at least sometimes, and 2. I have advance warning if storms or storm troopers should ever hit Jining?

(My day was boring by the way).


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