VIRGETS
12.19.00
I have long tolerated fortune cookies, finding them more practical than studying the order in which a rooster eats grains of wheat./FONT>
In the movie Pal Joey, Frank Sinatra hands his overcoat to the pretty Asian hat-check girl and cracks: "How’s your fortune cookies?"
As instruments of divination, I have long tolerated fortune cookies, finding them considerably more practical than, say, studying the order in which a rooster eats grains of wheat or the shape of oil poured over water.
But truth be told, perhaps my tolerance is rooted in the taste of the cookies containing the clairvoyance. Many love them not, but I always thought them to be an ice cream cone twisted into an obscene configuration. Which makes them damn near perfect.
Naturally, the messages included in the cookies are sometimes puzzling, sometimes ambiguous, sometimes just goofy. Myself, I am usually more impressed with The Other Side of the message, the one spawned by state lotteries. These are even more mysteriously cryptic than the Confucius-says messages themselves. Here’s one of my favorites: 4-13-14-19-36-40 and 2-3-5. I always loved numbers.
Well, whether you mull or snigger over the contents of fortune cookies, you pay them heed. I have observed almost no one pushing back from their rumaki and sweet-and-sour snipe and General Tsao’s chicken who fails to crack open their cookie and read what’s inside. The Tao of General Tsao, you might say.
Here are some recent ones I have noted, along with the name of the restaurant and my reaction, if any:
"Those who do not set goals are destined to work for those who do." (LuYuan) Just my luck. My only goal was never to work for those who set goals.
"Stop searching. Happiness will come to you." (Bangkok) Good thing Christopher Columbus didn’t get this one.
"God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another." (China Jade) This one must have been authored before the ACLU went to court to keep God out of the prophecy racket.
"Your work interests can capture the highest status or prestige." (Hong Kong) Yeah, this was clearly not intended for a freelancer.
"One who admires you greatly is hidden before your eyes." (Kung) Well hidden, I might say; I got this one while dining alone.
"Nothing is certain but the unforeseen." (P.F. Chang) And that people will keep reading little slips of paper which imply they can foresee the unforeseen.
"The power you desire lies within you." (China Imperial) I actually read this one to my dinner companion, as she was applying make-up with reckless abandon.
"You should be able to undertake and complete anything." (China Rose) Note the Clintonian use of the qualifier "should."
"When someone says ‘Life is hard,’ ask them ‘Compared to what?’" (FiveHappiness) Well, compared to finding someone to write fortune cookie messages. Read on …
I confess certain idle speculations regarding who it was who actually put pen to paper to come up with these high points of lo mein culture. And I recall chuckling over a cartoon showing a diner reading a fortune cookie which proclaimed, "Help! I’m being held prisoner in a fortune-cookie factory!"
The truth is slightly less sinister – slightly. Not along ago, I came across an article about a certain Stephen Yang of San Francisco. In that city, Yang keeps a tiny high-secret shop where he and his wife provide content for fortune cookies around the nation.
Yang refused to let the interviewer into his shop, which he claimed contained secret cost-cutting devices. But he did identify some of those who do the actual message-writing – at rates ranging from 30 to 70 cents per message. Can you see this coming?
A San Diego speech pathologist named Donna Jackson and a proofreader for Bob’s Typing Service in San Francisco named Russell Rowland.
Donna Jackson? Russell Rowland? Speech pathologist? Proofreader? Excuse me, but this doesn’t live up to certain, well, ethnic expectations. I’m talking distant monks, high lamas, students of The Way, followers of the "Tao te Ching," inscrutable Orientals who sprout things like "In ruling the sage attends to the stomach, not the eye."
Yes, in the matter of sage licensing, we grant great allowances to the Asiatic, usually assuming that their banalities are actually profundities not easily discerned by Westerners. Isn’t there something about their minds that gives them an edge in the utterance of pithy, enigmatic wisdom?
Ichecked with a racetrack associate namedKeith Gee, a fine handicapper of Asian bloodlines. Keith doesn’t fly a small plane, contribute to charities who solicit by phone or fluster at the sight of a butterfly ballot. This makes him as bright as a new nickel to me, so I asked him about fortune cookie wisdom.
"Ha!" he chortled. "First, look at the cookie. Anybody who’d believe what comes out of something looking like that is definitely not wired high voltage. Or, as Confucius might say, ‘does not discern between the whale and the weasel.’"
"Say, Keith, that’s pretty good. Would you like to make some cash money writing messages to go in fortune cookies? They pay half a buck per; we could split it. Two bits each?"
"Oh, I’d take care of the other side of the message. See, I’ve always been good with numbers." .
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