#27 - I am Fortune's Fool

I am Fortune's Fool

5/10/04 (#27)

My definition of "authentic Chinese food"? Simple---does it come with a fortune cookie?

I have no idea if they have fortune cookies in China. There are items on "Mexican" restaurant menus here in Portland that my Mexican friend is unfamiliar with, so I would not be surprised if I traveled to Beijing and heard my waiter say to his co-worker, "This crazy white guy is asking me for a cookie full of money. I swear, the tourists get dumber every year." (Actually, I would be surprised, because I'd expect them to talk behind my back in Chinese, not English.) I grew up in predominantly-Caucasian towns in predominantly-Caucasian New England, which in terms of Asian gastronomy translates to fluorescent-red barbeque pork, dry chow mein noodles, and fortune cookies.

Sadly, the state of fortune cookies in America is rather unfortunate these days. The little strips of so-called wisdom that come wrapped in those dry confections are becoming little more than vehicles for randomly-generated lottery numbers. Maybe this has always been the case, and when I was young I didn't really care if the message wasn't profound or insightful; maybe the name "fortune cookie" has always been a misnomer, and it simply sounded better than "adage cookies" or "pointless cookies." (Or maybe, the Chinese simply no longer want us knowing what the horizon holds for us.)

Lest you get the wrong idea, I do not rely on little cellophane-wrapped cookies for planning my future. I would never look to a dessert course for a final word on buying stocks or quitting my job. (Though if they had Fortune Fudge Cakes, I might seek counsel from that sugary oracle.)(Every third Fortune Fudge Cake message would read, "You are going to get fat. Seriously.") However, being a superstitious sort, I see these fortunes as the hand of God providing anecdotal reassurance of my decisions---sort of a cosmic Ed McMahon saying, "You are right, Johnny!" Not to say God is in the baking business (I'd more likely say that about the Fudge Cakes), but I find life to be a lot more fun if you open yourself up to the possibility that messages are presented to us everyday, if we opt to pay attention to them. And I pay attention to them.

And as a reward for my attentiveness, I get cookie messages like this:

"Laughter is the best medicine"

There may be truth to that sentiment (though Tylenol PM has its merits, too), but it's not really a fortune. If you stepped behind the curtain at the psychic booth and the ancient woman placed her skeletal hands upon the crystal ball and spoke, "All's well that end's well", would you consider that $5.00 well spent? I suppose you could read something into that if you'd like, but if all it takes to be a psychic is to memorize the maxims from Poor Richard's Almanac, I've chosen the wrong line of work.

Another recent post-sweet-and-sour prophecy:

"Keep an eye open for an opportunity"

Huh?! Who isn't looking out for opportunities? It's this sort of vagueness that relegates the horoscope to the same newspaper page as the comics. (While I am a casual believer in Astrology (see note above regarding life being more fun if you open yourself up to the possibility), that willingness to suspend disbelief is due to the fact that if you read a list of Libra's characteristics, it looks like the ingredient list for baking a Bill Reagan. But I recognize that Astrology and the horoscopes in a newspaper possess the same degree of connection as Astronomy and the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars you stick to your bedroom ceiling.)* Telling someone to keep an eye open for opportunities is tantamount to advising, "Be careful not to get yourself killed." Some advice simply doesn't require dispensation, even if it's included in the price of dinner.

I doubt the demise of the fortune cookie is symptomatic of a greater degradation in Chinese Literature (I'm sure fortune cookies are to Chinese literature what Hallmark is to American prose), but more likely is indicative of the continuing domination of lawyers in every aspect of our society. Some idiot probably got a fortune that said, "You're instincts are right, trust them", mortgaged his house to buy stock in Moneypit.com, then used his 3-cents-on-the-dollar settlement to hire a lawyer and sue the restaurant that gave him the errant advice. Since the restaurant did not make its own cookies, the court case would never be completed, but legal fees alone made that lunch the most expensive plate of cashew chicken in history, so the days of insightful Chinese desserts came to and end. In their place, we get messages like:

"Your home is a pleasant place from which you draw happiness"

Absolutely true---but isn't a fortune supposed to come true, not simply be true? I'm reminded of a joke my Dad told me: "Our weatherman is fabulous: He's accurately predicted 5 of our last 2 storms." Nostradamus didn't make a celebrity of himself by predicting the past, he did it by making vague prognostications that allowed for centuries of "interpretation" by gullible people who are so petrified of the future that they seek solace in the ramblings of a man who accurately predicted (depending on interpretation) either "World War II", or Brazil's victory in a soccer match, "World Cup, by 2." (Frankly, if you are willing to give credence to the accuracy of prophecies by an early 16th century poet---and not much of one at that----then divine intervention via mass-produced cookies shouldn't be much of a stretch for you.) My home is a place from which I draw happiness, but I want my fortunes to be a place from which I draw hope for the future, not congratulations for the past.

Many deal with the declining state of the fortune cookie by making a joke of it: You are likely familiar with the parlor game involving fortune cookies, in which any fortune is enhanced by the addition of "...in bed" to the end of the fortune text. For instance, "You will soon receive a strange proposition" is greatly enhanced by this addition: "You will soon receive a strange proposition...in bed." Ha ha, everyone at the table guffaws and laughs, and the world is filled with more joy, with sole thanks directed to the ticker-tape-printed message. But my fortunes aren't even fodder for this type of frolic. Look at the example above:

"Laughter is the best medicine...in bed"

Sorry Confucius, but I'm going to have to differ with you on that one. Short of a funeral or a court hearing, I can think of few locations where laughter is more ill-advised than between the sheets. Most humans are self-conscious enough with the real or imaginary flaws of their own bodies that unless you are watching a Chris Rock special while under the covers, this fortune could be translated as "You are going to do nothing except sleep for a long time...in bed."

I wish that a restaurant (preferably one that serves good food) would resist this tide toward prosaic proclamations and step up with an aggressive fortune cookie campaign. Such a stance was fictionally documented in the movie Moon Palace (2000), a story about a man who applies for a restaurant help-wanted ad with a typo (he thinks it's a job for a waiter, since what would a Chinese restaurant need with a writer?), only to find that his job is to sit in a small little room, observe the diners and listen in to their conversations using concealed microphones, and write fortunes appropriate to the hopes and dreams of the eavesdropped dinner dialogue. The owner's plan is that if customers feel that the fortunes at his restaurant are eerily accurate, they will be more likely to return. (Obviously, he had me in mind as the ideal pawn in his retail chess match.) I'd love it if the aforementioned hand of God was not a reassuring pat on the back, but instead an alarming jostle of my shoulder yelling, "Quit pretending your job isn't draining your soul like a keg tap at a frat party!"

Alas, I'm sure the lawyers would put the kibosh on the idea, likely right after the third table-side heart attack. ("He seemed to be in perfect health, officer. Then he read his fortune----'You are being replaced by a computer. And to add insult to injury, it's a Pentium 1'---and he collapsed.") Thus, as long as the ambulance chasers exist, I'm left to endure nonsense like my latest (I swear this is true) "fortune", received from North Portland's delicious Pho Jasmine: "Smile if you like this fortune cookie."

So far, that fortune has not come true.

Not even in bed.

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* If you want to read a really good weekly horoscope, check out Free Will Astrology. I read them one week behind, as a recap rather than a prediction, and find that about 50 weeks a year they are so eerily accurate that I wonder why they didn't mention me by name.

©2004 wpreagan