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Show ST. GEORGE www.thespectrum.com NEIGHBORHOODS rte week of September 8, 2008 — The Spectrum — 17 Good fortune can be yours if that's the way the cookie crumbles ile dining at a found in fortune cookies are nothing more than statements of fact, like this fortune cookie I got right here i in Southern Utah, “Everything's better with monosodium glutamate’ Fortune cookies would be even more fun if we could write our own fortunes. Picture a company party held at a local Chinese restaurant. After the meal everyone is sitting around the table when the boss starts handing out fortune cookies for his employees to read. « Employee #1, reading his cookie: “You are far from lazy... you put in a hard day's work every week”. « Employee #2: “You are a miracle worker... if we can catch you working it’s a miracle!” - Employee #3: “If you live a long life it will be a testament to your boss and co-workers’ self control” - Boss: “To lower your stress level, get a cat” Some of the fortunes local Chinese restaurant the other evening I had a lifechanging experience. I finished my meal, opened my fortune cookie and read, “You love Chinese Food”. Wow — What insight! This simple incident inspired me to spend upwards of 20 minutes investigating the highly secretive fortune cookie industry. Here is what I found: ' The most startling thing I learned is that fortune cookies aren't even Chinese. It seems that “fortune cookies” first appeared in California, probably near the same location where “tacos” were invented. It turns out that fortune cookies in their current form were first served in California by immigrants who based the cookie on a traditional cracker from Japan — And get this, fortune cookies are practically unknown in mainland China! In fact, my hard-hitting investigation has revealed that there is not even a word for fortune cookie in Chinese; the Chinese simply say “fortune cookie” with a Chinese accent, although there have been a few John Carter So. Utah Ponderings attempts at a literal translation that come up with terms like “good luck label cookie” or “lucky labelwords cookie”. Does this mean that the fortunes contained in fortune cookies are something to take lightly? I'll let the reader be the judge. Here are some fortunes that I have received in my lifetime: I took a date once toa Chinese restaurant near the garment district in New York. The fortune in my cookie read, “Inspected by #32” and my date’s fortune simply stated, “Life is not a struggle — it’s a wiggle’ It ended up being a good date! Years ago a group of my friends got together and we went to a Chinese Restaurant in Los Angeles. My fortune read, “When it comes to helping others youll stop at nothing”. Of course many of the predictions or fortunes used in cookies are nothing more than commonsense statements. Take this fortune I received once in a box of fortune cookies I bought while working in Africa: “Avoid large heavy objects traveling at high rate of speed” Another little part of the fortune in fortune cookies is the lucky number — which usually contains enough lucky numbers to fill out a lotto Pick 6 card. (Which I’m sure was a big deal in China years ago). Nonetheless, Wonton Foods Inc. a manufacturer of fortune cookies in New York printed thousands of fortune cookies that listed lucky lotto numbers mass production of fortune cookies was made possible by Shuck Yee of Oakland, California, who invented the machine that makes the cookies. Which leads me to what I feel will be the next big step forward in fortune cookies... the fortune cookie ad. Imagine in the future taking the one you love to a Chinese restaurant and opening your cookie to find this prediction... “A love seat from the Furniture Store at 204 N. Main Street oe eee big dividends in the (Fortune Cookie Ads) was reinforced by the fortune . in the last cookie I read which stated, “Everything will now come your way!”... I just hope when it comes that it’s not large and traveling at a high rate of speed! Dreaming about a new Career? 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