The JFK of fortune cookies

 Posted by on 5 March 2009  Modern Life
Mar 052009
 

fortunecookie

My friend Colin got this with his lunch today. It’s a definite koan. For the record, the back of it was in French, so he doesn’t even have lucky numbers to play in this week’s lottery.

What really intrigues me is how much this speaks to the Americanization of so-called “Chinese food.” Even the fortunes are tinged with classic Americana!

In 50 or so years, will some child or grandchild of mine crack open a fortune cookie to read about “the audacity of fortunes”? We can only hope.

Grant Hamilton

  • Colin Corneau

    Actually, fortune cookies are a uniquely American invention anyway. If anything it speaks to the ease with which Chinese culture diffuses and assimilates into whatever culture or environment it finds itself in.

    There’s no such thing as fortune cookies in China! I only want to leave that with you, as well as the advice that #87 at Double Happiness is quite tasty.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      Colin, you’re such a taikophile.

  • Colin Corneau

    Yeah…stoopid lang-widge! Its forr loozers and stOopId, too!

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I meant “taiko” as in taikonaut, and “-phile” as in the opposite of phobic.

  • Colin Corneau

    D’OH…it looked like “talk” on my tiny 24 inch monitor.

    Get out the specs and Geritol…