Anatomy of a Fortune Cookie

Contrary to the implication of the title, this article is not a treatise on the form or construction of fortune cookies. The process of taking freshly-cooked circular cookies, placing paper in the middle, curling in the edges and bending the middle is a remarkable accomplishment and well worth researching. Instead, let's examine the contents of the cookie itself: the small paper fortune.

Years ago (during the last century, as a matter of fact) I noticed some peculiar themes recurring on fortune cookie fortunes. Since my childhood, cryptic guidance has always appeared on the obverse, promising future happiness, wealth or love. More recently, other features began appearing with varying frequency, usually on the fortune's reverse. The most common "DVD extra" offered is a collection of lottery numbers. These digits became an industry standard over a decade ago. Having stared at these numbers time & again, the question that kept rattling in my head was: could I use the random lotto numbers to power the skills or combat mechanics of a role-playing game (RPG)? I have an idea for using nearly every part of a fortune cookie to resolve uncertainty around story events.

Before delving deeper into that idea, let me dissect the common fortune. As mentioned before, the front always contains some generic prognostication. Apologies for the fuzzy image above, but here is a shot of some fortunes collected recently from various sources. The text on the fortunes read (from top):

• Turn your thoughts within - find yourself
• Your nurturing instincts will expand to include many people
• A friend is a present you give yourself
• A surprise treat awaits you
• Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure
• It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness
• You are attracted to things with an exotic flavor

That last fortune in red is from Panda Express/Panda Inn, so it serves as an advertisement for the chain as much as a paper predictor. Flipping the fortunes over reveals another oddity from the last specimen.

The fine folks at Panda Express don't want to be held liable for your predictably bad luck at government-sponsored gambling. That slip of paper offers no numbers at all. The others offer a variety of Lucky Numbers (once literally) that could easily apply to common lottery games of a Daily Pick 3 nature or a Multiball style drawing. The triplets shown on three of the fortunes are as follows:

Given the nature of state-sanctioned games of chance, these numbers probably allow the digits 0 through 9 with replacement (meaning that the same number could theoretically be drawn up to three times). It didn't happen on these examples, so I need to dig through my collection to see if that does occur.

These longer sets of auspicious numbers are modeled after drawings that feature a single basket of numbers 1 through an arbitrary upper limit. In this sample, the largest number is 55, but real world examples such as the Virginia Lottery use numbers up to 75 to decrease the actual chance of anyone winning the large prize.

Finally, one fortune allows you to linguistically expand your horizons; in this particular case you can learn yan: the Chinese word for salt. This miniature vocabulary lesson appears less frequently than numbers, but usually has pronunciation as well as the pictograph associated with the word.

Photo courtesy of United States Geological Survey

Based on my experience, this list shows what information can be found on a fortune by decreasing popularity:

1. Fortune
2. 6 lucky numbers (1-55? with no duplication)
3. 3 lucky numbers (0-9 w/ possible duplication)
4. Chinese vocabulary word/phrase

Each of these are randomly determined by a printer in a cookie processing company somewhere across the globe. That information remains in indeterminate form until the cookie is broken open and the paper emerges.

Best of luck ~ Adm. Wolff