the watch of time

There is at least one longstanding element of food culture which has not changed with the times: messages in Chinese fortune cookies.

Recent experience has confirmed that the same old array of vague, albeit usually upbeat, expressions and predictions remain in vogue. Perhaps it has something to do with the evidently simple assembly-line manner in which such message cookies have long been created and distributed. Perhaps the substance of most messages, involving abstract universal themes, is deemed to validate whatever wording is used, as not worth re-visiting for style, spirit, or timeliness.

However, times have caught up with inevitability the simple-minded nature of fortune cookie messages. Retaining terminology relevance demands some new perspectives, and the wording to massage the updated themes.

Here’s a list of ten new suggestions:

• Those who do not learn from history are bound to modify it
• Your lucky numbers are 1101, 0101, and 0011
• Beware the emoji with moving lips
• At least 52% of your likes on social media are true
• You will be rich, but the therapy for coping with the guilt will eat it away
• Backing up files saves them only in a technical sense
• You, too, can pretend to reduce your carbon footprint
• Let the forces of the internet world be with you
• Being part of a blended family means never knowing for sure what precipitates being sorry
• You will be healthy, wealthy and wise – or at least two out of three

After all, a ‘fortune cookie’ should mean more than receiving an out-of-step thrill to top off a non-home cooked meal.